


Teen Wolf Rejected Story Idea Fragments

by Guede



Series: Teen Wolf Rejected Story Ideas [4]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Aftermath of Torture, Alpha Lydia Martin, Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Alternate Universe - Assassins & Hitmen, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Pokemon Fusion, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Alternate Universe - Western, BAMF Lydia Martin, BAMF Stiles, Bondage, Comeplay, Dark Lydia, Dark Stiles, Dom/sub Undertones, Dubious Consent, Eggs, F/M, Gangbang, Human Alpha Stiles Stilinski, Human Peter Hale, Impact Play, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Multi, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Overstimulation, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Rimming, Sex Toys, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Were-Creatures, Werecat Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 22:10:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6059890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of abandoned story ideas.  Some of these are alternate takes of stories I eventually wrote out; some are just plain abandoned.</p><p>3/18/18: Posted abandoned fragment of one of those gritty medieval fantasy AUs everybody now refers to as <i>Game of Thrones</i>-inspired.  Mostly Stiles/Peter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dark Western AU: Stiles, Lydia and Chris

The place has the picturesque name of High Spirits, but it’s little more than a general store-furtrading post, with a couple cabins huddling up to it for protection. There are a couple outlying ranches, small, hardscrabble plots that squeeze in between the trees, but all in all, the area’s still virgin wilderness. Its people survive mostly by virtue of being the very last stopping place possible this side of the mountains.

“But it doesn’t make them friendly, does it?” Lydia murmurs. She lifts a small sack of flour, giving the dour storekeeper a fixed smile, and then pushes her hood back. Pulls a bit of her cloak away from her bust, too, letting its shape show, and while the man looks, she pricks the bottom of the sack with a needle and then frowns at the light dusting that puffs from the hole. “Or save them from being cheats. Sawdust at these prices is still robbery.”

“Let’s try to not make our hosts mad, all right?” Stiles mutters back. He reckons up the prices of the goods laid out on the counter, making sure to slide his coat back from the gun on his hip, and then sighs and pulls out his money bag. “We don’t want to be here any more than they want us.”

“Ain’t you,” the storekeeper suddenly breaks in. He steps away from the bullet boxes he’d been straightening, then comes up to the counter. He doesn’t look any friendlier, but he does nod to the front door. “Just on edge. Had a murder the other week.”

Lydia’s brows rise. “My word. And I would never have expected you to have enough people around for such doings.”

The storekeeper took a good look at her, and he takes another one now, though it seems like he ends up deciding on appreciating her sense of humor. “It was another traveler,” he says, dry as the dust in the bottom of his flour sacks, and then he turns his head and spits off to the side. “Come in with his wife and daughter, saying he was bound for Oregon, and then he up and kills Joe’s boy.”

“Terrible,” Stiles says. “Why ever would he do something like that?”

“Well, he was saying the boy was a monster,” the storekeeper tells them. He glances at the little spill of dust on the counter, lifts his lip in something that could just as well be a snarl as a sneer, and then takes the bag right out of Lydia’s hands. Puts it under the counter and then substitutes another one, before she’s even widened her eyes all the way in offense. “All right, well, you ain’t been playing friendly like they were. I don’t know as I know what you two are up to, but you ain’t lying yet.”

“The distinction is much appreciated,” Lydia says. She looks the man dead on, while loosening the top of the sack, and then she raises her fingertip and stabs it straight into the flour. Pulls it back out and looks it over, twisting the digit slightly. “What kind of monster?”

The storekeeper takes a step back, both to get their measure, and to put his hand near the shotgun he’s got leaning up against the wall. “Reckoned the boy was a werewolf.”

Stiles laughs, and then leans one arm on the counter. He looks at the number of different herbs hanging along the far wall in bundles, the stacks of pelts piled up on the shelves. The way a lot of them have edges that are a little ragged, cut by something not so thin as a proper skinning knife. “Well, so was he?”

He and the storekeeper have their own little moment, the other man squinting and rubbing his tongue over some pretty rotted teeth, and then the storekeeper abruptly shrugs. “Well, if he was, guess that’s why he was the best hunter around,” the man says. “Kept us from starving two winters straight, the meat he brought it.”

“Did his killer say he attacked anybody?” Lydia asks. The flour’s acceptable so she pushes it over with the rest of the goods, and then rubs her finger off on the counter. Something shifts under her cloak and she briefly raises it to reset the rifle slung over her back.

The storekeeper looks a little longer, weighing up the rifle versus the conservative riding habit she’s got on. “He did, but Bill never went after nobody who wasn’t an outsider, and giving him reason for it,” he finally says. “What’s your interest in it?”

“Curiosity, I guess,” Stiles says with a shrug. “Not every day you ride into town, and there’s a man chained up by the town well.”

“Well, he give you any trouble, you just kick him over,” the storekeeper says. “We gave him and his wife a say according to the law, and even got the Bible out to have everybody swear to it. He got a proper sentence and everything.”

Lydia looks up sharply. “Wife?”

“Oh, she’s dead. Went after one of us with a knife, so Tom shot her, and then she was screaming and cursing us so, the old hunters, the ones who’ve lived with the tribes, they were saying we’d better burn her just to keep off the bad luck. That black patch behind the stable, that’s what’s left of her.” Then the storekeeper smiles at them, wide and strangely lacking in malice. He’s just amused at it, and doesn’t care an inch what they think. “He had a daughter too, but she ran off into the woods. Probably dead now, with how the weather’s been. Surprised he’s lasted so long.”

“Yeah,” Stiles agrees. “Strong one.”

“So what’d you say your interest was again?” the storekeeper says. His voice hardens, just as a couple shadows cross the threshold behind Stiles and Lydia. “And where are you headed?”

Stiles and Lydia look at each other, and then Stiles sighs and lifts his money bag onto the counter. He lets everybody listen to the heavy clink of it before tugging open the mouth and letting the silver spill out.

“We’re headed north, towards Beacon Hill,” he says, flicking one coin up to spin lazily on its rim. “Collecting on a debt—trying to, anyway. As for the interest, well, it’s rough going ahead, we could use a guide. And I was hearing of a man with a wife and daughter heading this way, who’d hunted up that way.”

“Beacon Hill?” the storekeeper says, startled. Then he shakes his head, laughing. “You two, you’re touched in the head, thinking of going there. The stories people bring back about that place, the things they think they see—”

He trails off, eyes staring, the size of eggs, in a face as pale as winter milk. At their backs comes the sound of cocking revolvers, and then a stifled, quickly cut-off curse as Lydia turns around and smiles at them.

“I think we’ll do all right,” Stiles says. He flicks the coin again, stopping its spin, and then shifts over so that the men behind him can see the money too. Then he pushes down on the bag, squeezing out another handful of coins. “It’s just we’re in a little bit of a hurry, and really could use that guide. So this murderer, how much?”

He’s not exactly surprised when that brings them to heel.

* * *

They didn’t strip Chris Argent of his clothes, or beat him too badly, and the well’s positioned so it breaks most of the wind at this time of year, which explains how he’s not died of exposure yet. Still, he’s got the high angry heat of fever in his eyes, and he’s barely holding up his head against the chains holding him to the well.

“Death by starvation,” Stiles says. “Not very eye for an eye. From what I heard, your family does usually kill them off quick.”

Chris is silent. Just crouches back against the stone wall of the well, his lips peeling back from his teeth. His fingertips dig convulsively into the dirt when Lydia fluffs out her skirts, and then he sucks his breath over his teeth, making it sound like a curse, as she squats down to eye level with him.

“You know what we are,” she says.

He nods.

“Well, then I’d think you have at least an idea of what we’re doing here,” Lydia says. She and he look at each other for a little longer, and then she sniffs contemptuously. Glances at Stiles, who shrugs, and then she rises smoothly back to her feet. Plucks her skirts till they’re lying around again, then turns as if to go.

“My daughter,” Chris rasps. “Allison.”

Lydia stops. Stiles closes his fingers around the coin he’d been toying with, then puts that way and pulls out a stiletto instead.

“I told her—keep running.” Chris has been using the well, from the sound of it; his voice is weak but it’s not dried out. Or, Stiles thinks upon reconsideration, they’ve been making him use it. “She’s still in the woods, she’ll come find me. Just—just let her do that. Let me see her.”

“Not too much to ask, is it,” Lydia says dryly. “You could’ve asked for us to keep off her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the original beginning of a dark Western AU I have actually written out. I ended up junking this take because it didn't work to have Chris newly-bereaved.


	2. Human-to-Werewolf Peter, Not-a-Hunter!Chris and Alpha!Stiles AU

“You’re insane,” Chris says, staring at his sister. “Werewolves? You have to be kidding me.”

“Sorry, big brother, but you’re the one who’s the fool this time.” Kate smiles and shakes her head at him, as if she’s even remotely sorry, and then, without taking the gun out of his face, she jerks her head at the goons to either side of him. “I really didn’t want to do this, Chris, but we can’t take any chances. They’re going to be coming after their pack member and—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Chris snaps. He instinctively jerks his hands as the men step forward, then bites down on a hiss as Kate presses her gun into his cheek. “Kate. Kate. Look. Just—this is assault and kidnapping, at the very least, and whatever Dad told you, he does _not_ have that kind of political pull. He’s goddamn off his rocker, you and I both know that—”

“The whole town knows that,” Peter Hale says.

Kate rolls her eyes, then hauls back and kicks the man in the side. He doubles over, wheezing, his face twisted up bad enough that Chris is afraid something might have broken or ruptured. Which is just—just hell on top of insanity, his little sister breaking into his place and having him and one of the most prominent lawyers in town tied up.

“Honestly, Chris, you only have yourself to blame. I know you were a little messed up when Victoria died, but him as your rebound?” Kate tsks at him. “You could do better.”

“At least I’m going to have people looking for me,” Peter hisses. He’s breathing hard, his forehead still tapping the floor, but he sounds more angry than hurt. “You’ll be lucky if you get a missing persons report, once my family gets through with you.”

Kate laughs and walks to the far side of the room. She uses her gun to twitch aside the window drapes and peeks out at the backyard. “And you, well, I’ll be fair and admit that I’ve got nothing concrete—yet—one way or the other, but either you know or you’re just as stupid as my brother here.”

Peter jerks himself up against the wall, then grunts as the men sling Chris against him. His arms go stiff where they’re taped behind him, and then he breathes out slowly, eyes narrowed, tilting his head up. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Kate. As far as I can tell, you’re just having a rather medieval reaction to your brother’s alternative lifestyle.”

“Stop it,” Chris mutters, dragging himself off Peter. He twists his hands, but the duct tape doesn’t give. It’s so thick that he can use the edge of the rounds to catch against the baseboards to lever himself up. “You’re just getting her mad.”

“Oh, I’m not mad, Chris,” Kate says, looking over. She lifts her hand, cutting things off just as one of the men reaches down towards Peter. “I’m just—I really just don’t get how you haven’t noticed. You’re supposed to be the bright one in the family, after all.”

“We should just kill them,” the man who’d been reaching mutters. “What if they already talked to the pack?”

Kate snorts. “What, when they don’t even believe in werewolves? Believe me, I know when my big brother there’s lying, and he’s not.”

“But still, they know them, even if they don’t know they’re werewolves,” the man insists. “Maybe they let something slip.”

As they argue, Peter slouches down the wall, then winces and twists slightly off one side, the kicked one. He flexes at his arms and his legs, but doesn’t seem any more likely to tear the tape than Chris is.

“You all right?” Chris mutters. When Peter looks at him, Chris looks at the floor and then closes his eyes. “I am so sorry.”

“I admit this isn’t what I was expecting when you said your family was better off not knowing,” Peter says, sounding almost philosophical.

They haven’t been seeing each other that long—frankly, Chris had still been on the fence about whether to even label it ‘seeing each other,’ instead of Peter stalking and him having some lapses of judgment—but Chris can recognize that for the danger sign it is. He jerks his head up and looks at Peter, who’s eyeing his briefcase, still tumbled open in the corner where one of the goons had thrown it. A very soft buzzing is coming from it.

Something moves at the edge of Chris’ vision, and he might not agree with a damn choice Kate’s made since he walked out of their parents’ house at eighteen, but he still knows her. Before she can fully see what Peter’s looking at, Chris wrenches himself over and flops on top of the other man, and kisses the hell out of him.

Peter jerks and makes a pained noise—Chris’ knee jammed into his thigh on the way to straddling it—and then, thankfully, gets it. And his damned dramatic flair decides to be useful for once, as he cranes up into it, moaning showily and grinding up into Chris, spreading his legs as much as the tape wrapped around his ankles will let him.

“Fuck, I didn’t sign up to watch that shit,” says one of the goons.

Chris hears a footstep towards them and he freezes, then shoves his tongue further into Peter’s mouth. And also flattens himself further over the man, hopefully making a bigger target.

“Keep your fucking powder dry,” Kate’s voice snaps out. “If anybody’s going to be wasting bullets, it’ll be me, with my bullet in your head. If you can’t just shut your damn eyes, then just take them out and lock them in the car.”

There’s some grumbling, and then Chris is yanked off Peter and pulled to his feet. A second later, Peter’s up next to them, and they’re being shoved non-too-gently towards the garage. Still, the men seem more eager to just get them away than to mess with them, so they end up in the back of Kate’s SUV with just a few more bruises.

Also, with more company, Chris is horrified to see. A limp body’s curled up in the corner, on top of a mess of chains, and even without seeing the person’s face, he can tell that they’re young, maybe Allison’s age. A bookbag thrown into the corner is spilling out the same Economics textbook that she uses.

The car door slams down, almost covering up Peter’s shocked noise. Chris glances over, trying to get up onto his knees, and Peter is staring at the body with a rapidly-paling face. “Stiles?” he says.

“Who?” Chris mutters.

“My nephew’s—Stiles? Stiles, damn it, if you’re conscious say something,” Peter snaps, shaky like Chris has rarely seen him. “The last thing we need is Derek on a rampage.”

“Like you weren’t hoping on just that, uncle Peter. I heard his ringtone too, and man, did your heartbeat jump for joy. He’s gonna be so flattered,” comes a sarcastic, inexplicably strong voice. The body goes from limp to upright in an instant, and Chris finds himself looking at a vaguely familiar teenage boy, who carries the heavy chains wrapped over him like they were nothing. “And keep it down, would you? It’ll go a lot better if they still think they just got a beta.”

Peter is genuinely confused. And angry. “Stiles, I haven’t understood a damn thing _anyone_ has said tonight since Chris’ insane little sister decided she had to interrupt dinner, and I’d appreciate it if you just cut your ridiculous patter to—”

Stiles raises his brows and looks at Chris. And then—Chris frowns, because checking him out now?—he grins, once his eyes get done dragging over Chris. “Man, he’s pissy when he doesn’t get laid,” he says. “Okay, so short version, guys. Kate Argent there thinks she’s a mighty werewolf hunter, and what’s more, thinks she’s about to bag herself an alpha, which is like bagging a sixteen-point buck, to relate to something you understand—”

“I don’t,” Peter says, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I get it,” Chris says. He ignores Peter’s glare. “But what does that have to do with us?”

“Well, she thinks Derek’s the alpha,” Stiles says, sighing in disappointment. “And okay, he got sloppy, and believe me but I’ll be having words with the guy later. He’s got his good points, but not taking the bait isn’t one of them.”

“So this is all because of some stupid con that my nephew and his juvenile delinquent boyfriend are pulling?” Peter snaps.

“Oh, hey, let’s not be nasty,” Stiles says. He lifts his hands and Chris can see Peter finally registering how odd that is, that a slim-bodied boy like Stiles doesn’t seem to have any trouble with the chains. And—and there’s something wrong with Stiles’ smile too, something too wide and white and—and inhuman about it. Too many _teeth_. “And come on, Peter. It’s Derek. Do you really think he could pull off a con? For that matter, you really think he’s the brains behind this?”

Peter’s too frozen to reply. Chris can feel the man trembling against him, muscles so stiff they’re spasming with the effort. And he can’t look over either. Can’t look away from the boy in front of him, with the glowing red eyes and the long fangs and the growing claws.

“So Kate’s actually right,” Stiles says. “Just not about who the alpha is. And I’m sorry about this, but honestly, it’s pretty much the only way you’ll get out of this alive, and I did promise Derek and Allison we’d take care of both of you.”

“Alli—” Chris starts, voice rising.

And then Stiles lunges over and bites him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the original take on what eventually became [Peter and the Wolf](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5561773/chapters/12827488). I ended up wanting a funnier take, and also, decided I wanted to try a dynamic where Stiles and Chris were the established couple and Peter was coming in. And I wanted to have Derek start out as human too.
> 
> But anyway, this would've spun out as the younger generation basically are the werewolves and know everything, and the older generation are clueless. Chris does hunt, but just deer and stuff like that; he got cut out of the family business because he's male and also exhibited morals early on, but Allison was let in because Gerard and Kate tried to brainwash her (which she resisted) behind Chris' back. Derek got bit by Stiles way before the story's start and has been a werewolf for a while, which he's hidden from the rest of the family. Stiles ends up bringing Peter and Chris in as betas.


	3. That AU where Stiles and Lydia take over, including Derek's dating habits, in order to save the town

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hale fire happened, but Laura and Derek never left town. Alpha pack came in earlier to target Laura; more people find out about werewolves earlier because here smart people actually put things together before Scott gets bitten. Stiles and Lydia get fed up with everybody's incompetency and put together their own pack to show how you do that properly, and the Sheriff is convinced to just ignore his son's harem by the fact that it demonstrably lowers the kill count.

“Stiles,” Lydia says one day. “You know, I think what this town really needs is an alpha.”

“It _has_ an alpha,” Stiles says. “Actually, it has a ton of alphas. That’s kind of the whole problem.”

Lydia rolls her eyes at him. “And that’s what I mean. Not a single one of them does a damn thing except murder and terrorize _and_ let me finish—” she raises her hand to his face “—keep your dad out late at night.”

Stiles closes his mouth and thinks about that. “Huh. Yeah, you’re right. We should do something about that.”

* * *

“Hi,” says the coltish boy standing in the doorway of Peter’s hospital room. He has a basket of fresh-baked muffins—which admittedly smell delicious—and the redheaded girl at his elbow has a taser. “I’m Stiles and this is Lydia. We’re your new Cheer Volunteers.”

“Oh, good God,” Peter says, wishing more than ever that his damned werewolf body would just _get on with it_ and get him out of this bed. “Wonderful. I see your carrot and stick, and I would like to remind you and your hunter friends that I have a panic button and the sheriff’s direct number.”

They laugh at him. “He thinks we’re hunters,” Stiles says.

Lydia tosses her hair over her shoulder. “That’s next, Mr. Hale,” she says, advancing, and at that point Peter discovers his panic button doesn’t work.

* * *

“Hi, Mr. Argent,” Lydia says, standing on Chris’ step with a semi-familiar boy. “Oh, this is Stiles.”

“Right, Scott’s friend,” Chris mutters. He swallows down his instinct to call for Allison and tries his best to be polite. “Can I help you? Allison’s out—”

“Yeah, we know,” Stiles says. “That’s why we’re here.”

“She mentioned that you could use some help around the house. It’s a new community service program at school to help support single parents,” Lydia says, pushing imperiously by Chris and into the house. She promptly stops and pokes her feet at…yeah, that’s a pretty embarrassing dustbunny.

Chris grimaces, and somehow, while he’s doing that, Stiles slips in too. The boy’s carrying a bucket of cleaning supplies and he swings it so Chris has to step back, or else get his knees taken out. So Chris moves and Stiles shuts the door behind him, and then clucks at the dustbunny too.

“It’s been…we’ve been…” Chris mutters, trying to find something to say. Well, something besides, his wife was horribly mauled to death by one of the Alpha pack and six months later he and Allison are still trying to figure out how to deal with it.

“No, no, we get it,” Stiles says. “We’re on it, don’t worry.”

Which immediately makes Chris worry. Not that that stops them.

* * *

“What the hell?” Laura mutters. “Did that just happen?”

She’s naked. She’s naked, in the Stilinski living room, and her naked uncle is curled up under an afghan next to her, grumbling about waking him up, while a shellshocked, naked Chris Argent is sitting against the couch on Peter’s other side, covered in hickeys, staring at the handcuff dangling from one of his wrists.

“I don’t want to know why you’re all here, and seeing as I’m finally not getting any new bodies in the morgue, let’s just leave it at that,” John Stilinski says, as all three of them jump. He looks at them from the hall, tired, rumpled, obviously just coming home from work, and then he shakes his head and turns away. “Just, if you’re going to make a habit out of it, keep it off the carpet.”

“Wasn’t exactly my idea,” Chris says.

John snorts. “Wasn’t talking to you, Argent. And seeing as Stiles won me over with a presentation about _just_ how many murders can be directly tracked back to you and your men, I’d just shut up if I were you.”

“Fifty-six slide presentation,” Stiles says, bouncing into the room. “Though to be fair, the Hales racked up a seventy-two slide one, and yeah, yeah, I know, Dad, me and Lyds got carried away. But we got rid of the Alphas! Come on, we wanted to cele—”

“I don’t.” John holds up his finger. “Want to know. I’m still having a hard enough time with werewolves. Just—somebody had better have made me coffee.”

Lydia comes out of the kitchen, pot in hand, and John starts to smile gratefully at her. Then her mussed hair and the fact that she’s obviously just wearing a sleeping robe register with him. He winces, averts his eyes, and then just takes the coffeepot from her and walks off, muttering under his breath about what the hell kid he raised and he’s just worked too many hours for any of this to make sense, and he’s going to bed.

“Okay, sleep tight, Dad,” Stiles says absently. “Okay. So, everything’s fixed, right? We’re good? I think we’re good. Go team human alpha!”

* * *

“But I thought you had a date,” Scott says, frowning. Then he yelps and hunches over, turning wounded eyes on a seething Derek. “What?”

“This is so bad,” Stiles moans, flopping face-first into the table. “Just, I don’t get it, okay? Just how do you keep _finding_ these people?”

“Why don’t you just tell him he can’t date anymore?” Peter says, getting up and moving so that he can massage Stiles’ shoulders. “You’re alpha, you can do that.”

Lydia folds her arms over her chest and looks at Peter, who obligingly lifts his hands and holds them out like he’ll move over to her. She rolls her eyes, but it’s a few seconds before she shakes her head.

“Hahaha with the PDA bribery, Peter,” Stiles chimes in, waving off Laura’s half-hearted protest. “No, we’re not that kind of alpha.”

“Nothing’s going to happen anyway,” Derek mutters. “It’s not like _everybody_ I go out with turns out to be a problem.”

* * *

“Okay, so everyone you date is a psycho, so as your alphas we have to do something about this,” Stiles says, folding his hands in front of him.

Derek grunts as he’s forcibly seated before Stiles and Lydia. He jerks his shoulders free, then slouches down and glowers at: Scott, who looks guilty but who stays put; Peter, who is smugly guarding the one exit out of the room; and Chris, who just steps back and starts sharpening a knife.

“I’m sorry, bro, but he’s right!” Laura yells from the hall. “That’s three in a row this _month_!”

“Well, so what the hell are you going to do about it?” Derek snarls, twisting back around. “Try and keep me from dating my whole life?”

“Derek, we’re _good_ alphas,” Lydia sighs. “We’re not about denying you your free will.”

“Nah, we’re better than that,” Stiles says, leaning forward. “We’re going to troubleshoot you.”

Derek stares at them. And then looks at Scott, who shrugs. “I’m sorry, but whatever they’re talking about, it’s got to be better than rescuing you from basements all the time,” Scott says.

* * *

“Okay, step one,” Stiles says. “We’re going to stay here, and you’re going to rate people as they go by on a scale of one to ten. One is, not even if we were the last two people on earth, ten is I want their little puppy babies right the fuck now. And then Chris here is going to offer a second opinion. Not on their attractiveness, on the likelihood that they’ll try to kill you, because damned if I can figure out why your werewolf senses can’t pick up on it. We can use that to figure out some cues even humans can pick up.”

“You’re going along with this?” Derek says, looking at Chris.

“I’m not thrilled about it either, Derek, so let’s just get it over with,” Chris mutters.

Two hours later, Stiles thinks he might just have discovered a new application of Murphy’s Law. “That’s amazing, Derek. You have a hundred percent correlation rate. Honestly, that’s even better than the evil intentions detection runes that Lydia’s been working on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've ended up putting this one aside, but I may salvage parts of it later. The whole problem is that I want the focus to be on Stiles and Lydia troubleshooting Derek's dating and eventually ending up concluding that the best solution is to just date him themselves, but the intro stuff (if I'd filled out the skeleton here) would have been far, far too long. If I do salvage anything, it's probably going to be splitting it up into separate stories--just too much going on here.
> 
> Anyway, stage two would have been Peter critiquing Derek's pick-up approach, and stage three would have been Stiles and Lydia telling Derek to mock-date them so that they can correct his mistakes as he goes, and then oops! Sex. And oops! emotional entanglement. Because the whole problem with Derek is that he's kind of crushing on them anyway, but he doesn't know how to get in there when they're already screwing Chris and Peter and Laura, and he vents his frustration via self-destructive behavior.
> 
> I do think it'd be interesting to have Stiles and Lydia as a double alpha team. Closer to actual wolf pack structure, anyway.


	4. Fairytale Porn: Chris/Sheriff

“The laws are very clear,” John says, looking at the poacher. “If you kill something in our woods without permission, then you forfeit your own life.”

The man’s eyes widen in fear and John suppresses a sigh. He doesn’t take any pleasure in enforcing the laws, he truly doesn’t, but that is his duty, and he won’t shirk it. Besides, the boundaries are clearly marked, the rules are well-known. They always say that they had no idea, but that’s never true.

John starts to turn away, as his men bring the noose forward, but the poacher jerks after him. The man is immediately pulled back, hard hands forcing him down by the shoulders, but something about it catches John’s eye and he stops.

“Wait,” the man says. “Wait. My life’s forfeit, I know that. I know I was trespassing. But I have a daughter and I’m all that she has. She’s waiting for me, only a little way from here.”

“In our woods?” John sighs.

The man’s eyes flicker. That’s what is attracting John: he’s fearful but it’s not stricken terror, it’s not confusion. He has the look of someone who’s thrown himself into a dangerous venture, with no surety as to its result, but who plunges on anyway. Rare for a human—an exotic sight for one of them, in their land of eternal, peaceful summer.

“Just outside,” the man says after a moment. He strains under the hands pressing him down, craning his head back to meet John’s eyes. “I told her to not leave with anyone till I return. She’ll listen, she’ll stay there and she’ll starve to death.”

“I would offer to send notice of your fate, but you seem to have just rejected that,” John says slowly, watching how the man’s head tilts in surprise. He smiles ruefully and the man’s surprise deepens; the stories the humans tell of a cold, unfeeling race have some basis, but they’re hardly truth. “I have nothing against you, or your daughter. But you’ve hunted in our woods.”

“I know,” the man says again. He twists his shoulders under the restraining hands, grimacing in pain, and then looks at John. He has grey eyes, ones that shift from the mild color of a dove’s breast to the sharp flare of a storm sky just after the lightning’s burst. They plead with John, and then they drop suddenly, just as his voice drops to a soft whisper. “So I’m not asking for mercy for myself, only for her.”

It’s not the usual plea. John doesn’t have to consider it, and he generally doesn’t. He’s not as obsessed as some of his race with novelties. But…he considers it, and the man who made it. Not a fair youth by some years, but still very pleasing to the eye, with a leanly muscled body as spare and as elegant as any coursing hound’s. And the kill itself, forbidden as it was, it had shown unusual skill: a deer tracked to exhaustion, and then its neck cleanly-snapped, with only a few drops of blood at the nostrils to mar the hide.

He does appreciate true substance. More than things that are new, that’s what’s lacking these days, and it is a shameful waste to throw that away. John nods curtly. “Very well.”

The man’s head comes up sharply, then twists over as the guard with the noose advances. He looks back at John, face spasming ahead of an angry outburst, as if any promises have been made—and then he looks aside again, still with surprise, as the rope is twisted about his wrists instead. His breath bursts from him, sharp enough that one guard takes it for a protest and raises his hand in warning, and then he drops his head again.

He kneels quietly, allowing his hands to be bound before him, and the balance of the rope to be handed to John. “Scott,” John says, winding a few inches around his hand. “His daughter.”

Scott starts, then looks up from the poacher, guilt and sympathy in his eyes. He’s such an odd one for them, so gentle, but that should serve him well with a frightened child, John thinks. “Yes, my lord?”

“Go and retrieve her, and take her up to the house. You will be responsible for her until I return,” John says. He tugs at the rope and then stoops to slide his hand under the poacher’s chin as the man looks up. “You’ll have to give him something to earn her trust.”

The poacher looks at him, eyes darkening the way slate does when water pours over it. The jaw in John’s hand trembles, throat muscles brushing against the side as the man swallows hard. He keeps his eyes on John as he answers. “Tell her that you come from me, and that the hunt is over.”

John frowns and the man stares at him, waiting, but in the end, John merely dismisses Scott. And then the rest of his men, leaving them to dispose of the dead deer, as he pulls the man to his feet and then leads him through the forest. Their hunting camp is not far, and when they reach it, John sends the guards away so that he and the poacher are the only two there. 

He leads the man past the cooking fires, the stacks of chests, the billeted horses and the penned hounds. The man looks with interest at all of these things, his eyes lingering on the racked bows not in fear, or in vengeful planning, but in simple appreciation.

“You’re a hunter,” John says.

“I know the trade,” the man says, looking back at John. He tenses again, and when they come to the beds, quick bowers thrown together from interwoven branches and silk bedding, he draws his breath sharply over his teeth.

John pulls him onwards, and the man looks curiously at John. So curiously that he stumbles, when John halts him, and then he falls awkwardly to his knees, his hands jerked over his head by the rope.

“We do have need of people with such skills,” John says. “But there’s the matter of the law you broke first. Face the tree.”

The man looks at John for a moment longer. He’s not a youth but he’s hardly old, with the white of the teeth catching his lip, the way that that lip still reddens. The way he stares at John.

Then he looks away. He puts his hands out till he can touch the trunk, spreading his fingers to grip at it, and then he hisses as John pulls up on the rope and his palms run across the rough bark. The back of his shirt stretches between his shoulders, then shivers tautly over the muscles shifting beneath it.

John ties his wrists over his head, to a strong branch, and then winds the rope around the tree, crossing it so he can bring it down and loop the end about the man’s thigh. He wraps it tightly, then passes the rope back around the tree and binds the end to the man’s other thigh. Then he steps back.

The ropes stretch the man along the tree, forcing him to grip the trunk between his knees, and he strains against them, breathing hard but not speaking. His breath quickens a little more as John touches a knife-tip to the top of his shirt, just at his nape. He inhales harshly, almost louder than the sound of tearing cloth, and presses his face into the trunk as John slits open the back of his shirt.

There’s another inhale when his trousers are cut open, revealing a pale, surprisingly unmarked back, flowing to milky, shapely buttocks. The man rises up against the ropes, the little that he can, and hikes himself flat to the trunk. He tucks his face behind his arm but John can still hear the stutters in his breathing.

He does cry out when he’s struck, a short, sharp noise of surprise and pain, his limbs jerking in the ropes. But he gathers himself in impressive time, slowing his breathing, bracing himself again. His legs spread against the trunk, sending a shiver up through his back that makes the belt’s wide red mark dance across his white skin.

John doesn’t linger, as tempting as the sight is. He strikes the man quickly, allowing time for only a gasp between blows, until sixteen stripes cover the man from shoulderblades to the bottom of his buttocks, one for each point on the dead deer’s rack.

They’re flushed and lively, twisting every time the man, now panting, heaves himself against the ropes, a scarlet that reminds John of spilled wine and hot blood on snow. His fingers twitch, wanting to know if the stripes burn as badly as they look, but he puts the belt down and goes over to the tree.

“Please,” the man says raggedly, as John puts one hand to the knot at his thigh. He arches against the trunk, the great muscles in his leg flexing so that they press through the rope coiled over them, up into John’s palm. His face drags out from behind his arm and his eyes are like the shimmer that rises from still ponds in the heat. “Please.”

John breathes in sharply himself. It’s always summer here, but he rarely sweats, and yet, when he puts a hand up to his brow, he feels dampness.

He takes his hand away, and instead of untying the knots, he cuts the ropes. The man slumps, his arms pulling half-under himself as he groans, face pressed back into the tree. He shivers, twisting slightly, and then he pushes himself from the trunk, the remaining scraps of clothing falling away from him. His wrists are still bound and he uses them to catch himself as he turns, sprawling over the roots at John’s feet. He looks up, rising on his hands, and his front is raw too, long vertical scrapes of pink down his chest and belly, along the insides of his thighs.

“Please,” he says again. He shifts forward, his ass rising, the red of its welts catching John’s eye for a second. His hands graze John’s boot, and then grip it as he lifts himself and presses his cheek against John’s groin.

He holds himself that way for a moment, tense and trembling, and then he sighs deeply. His cheek pushes up, following the line of John’s erection, as John puts his hand on the back of the man’s neck, and then he turns his head so he can look up into John’s eyes.

“What’s your name?” John says.

The man closes his eyes. His neck twists under John’s hand, following it as John strokes his nape down to the first red stripe, and then his chin jerks up, the hard edge of it a teasing pressure across John’s cock. “Chris,” he says.

“And what are you running from, that you would seek us out?” John asks.

Chris stiffens. He would raise his head, except that John cups his hand over the back of it and holds it down. “My family,” he says, his voice harsh for a moment. “The rest of them. Please—let me serve you.”

John lifts his hand. “You will enter my household, you and your daughter,” he says. “You broke our laws, and killed our deer, but you’ve already offered enough to pay for that.”

He steps back. Chris looks at him, surprised. The man is strangely young then, sitting there naked and bound, and so caught up in John that he seems heedless of both.

And then—and then Chris tilts his head, runs his tongue over his lips. The surprise drains from his eyes and in its place swells up a deep, strong heat. He spreads his knees and tips forward onto his arms, laying out the marks on his back and buttocks for John’s perusal, and he’s aware now, he knows very well what he looks like and the way he leans forward and presses his mouth to John’s ankle says he knows how John will take it, too.

“Please,” he says again, voice rougher, lower. “Let me serve you.”

John steps forward again. Chris starts to rise, but John catches him first, taking him under the jaw and then dragging him to the nearest bower. Then he grips Chris by the back of one thigh. He pushes the man up and over onto the bedding, then pulls Chris back by the ankles, till he’s crouched at the very edge of the bower, his pinked buttocks held over the branch rim, presented to John.

A hand running over them spurs a low moan from Chris, who pushes his bound arms before him and then lays his head down within their straining circle. He spreads his knees, rocking himself up against John’s second, less gentle, caress, and then he groans as John pushes an oiled finger between his buttocks, circling his hole. His limbs tremble; he wants to push up but John presses on the small of his back and he holds where he is.

“You’re a fine hunter,” John says. He plunges his finger into Chris’ hole, causing the man to cry out, and then he simply lets it lie within Chris’ clenching body. He uses the rest of his hand to explore the swells and slopes of Chris’ buttocks, tracing the welts, plumping the abused flesh, while Chris moans and shifts restlessly against the bed. “You have a clever mind, and you have courage. But I can already see you’re reckless. You killed a deer to call me and my men to you, and when I could have simply killed you on sight.”

He unfastens his clothing as he speaks, drawing out his hard cock and leaning over the man so that it points at Chris’ back. Chris glances over his shoulder, then shudders, his head dropping, as John slips a second finger into him.

“I need a hunt-master to run my hounds and lead my men, and to care for these woods, and to protect my son. And perhaps you’ll be that master some day.” John twists and spreads his fingers against the clutch of Chris’ body, then lets them relax, just as Chris lets out a sobbing gasp into the bedding. “But not today. Today, I think, you will learn what it means to serve.”

He leans further over the bed, cupping his thumb and free fingers around the curve of Chris’ buttock. His thumb is lying along a welted stripe and Chris shudders at the pressure, sending all the stripes on his back to fluttering, like ribbons against a white sheet. John rubs the welts, pushing moan after moan out of Chris, just as his other hand moves over his own cock.

When Chris feels the scatter of John’s come on his back, the man bucks sharply and then swears to himself, grasping at the bedding even as John punishes him with a hard slap to his hip, just at the edges of the belt marks. Chris’ breathing breaks into another sob and then he stills himself, groaning lowly.

John tidies his clothes, and then withdraws his fingers from Chris’ hole, which squeezes after them and then, when they’re gone, continues to squeeze, as if hoping to draw something to fill it out of the thin air. “Turn over,” John says, and Chris moans but does so.

Slowly, shaking, barely able to get onto his side. He shivers in relief with John stops him there, and then he sees what’s in John’s hand and he throws his head back, his bound hands grinding futilely into the bed. His eyes close.

He whimpers like an out-of-favor hound when John presses the smooth, molded piece of ivory into his hole. His hips hitch up, and then he bears down onto the ivory, his hole closing almost completely over the silk cord tied to the end. He continues to rock, tiny, useless movements, as John takes the cord and brings it forward between his legs, and then uses it to bind his cock and balls. They’re both flushed, the balls tenderly clenching under their covering of dusky hair, and as John ties off the last of the cord behind the cock head, Chris’ hands jerk towards it.

Only a few inches, but it’s enough. John reaches over and grabs the rope around Chris’ wrists, pulling till the man’s turned around to face him. He fastens Chris’ wrists to the branches making up the bower with his belt, and then he puts his hand between Chris’ arms as the man writhes and moans. He touches some of the scrapes the bark left on Chris’ chest, runs his fingertips across sore, abraded skin. Toys with a pebbled nipple, then traces the shiver of the muscles all the way up Chris’ throat to his jaw.

Chris twists for him, soft, desperate noises dropping from lips that mouth at John’s forearm, then slide to suck at John’s fingers. He lets his head be tipped back, so John can see straight down into the wet dark of his open, moaning mouth, and then he pushes forward, takes the kiss and then hangs from it, shuddering as John leisurely tastes him.

“Those are my men coming back,” John says, pulling back. He runs a thumb over Chris’ cheek and the man shuts his eyes, presses his head into John’s hand like an eager hound, even as his face blushes over with shame, his knees jerk up in a futile attempt to cover himself. “I think you could lead them. But for now, you’ll lie here and you’ll wait for me. We’ve still our own hunt to finish, and you’ll wait for that. And while you wait, they’ll look at you, and they’ll see where I marked you. Sixteen times for the deer, and then once for myself.”

Chris shivers in his hand, lips grazing at John’s palm. “Please,” he says, as his body slowly uncoils across the bedding, red and white skin, cloudy white come drying over it. “Please. Keep me.”

John does keep him. He’s one of the most cherished members of the household, a strong, loyal man, who would throw his life down for John or his son, without hesitation. He runs their hunts with an iron hand in a velvet glove, a light touch on the bow and a sure one on the knife. His daughter marries into their ranks, and when the Argents try to call them back, he and his daughter reject it out of hand.

But, John admits, he never does quite lose that recklessness, no matter what John does. “My poor deer,” John says, running his hands down Chris’ sweat-slicked flanks. “I think they hate it when I come home now, they always know that one of them will be dead before the sun sets.”

Chris whines under John, sounding like one of the bell-voiced hounds he breeds for them. He’s master now, he needs to be respected, and John unfortunately can’t be showing his handsome hunter around to all and sundry when he misbehaves. But that doesn’t mean John can’t show him at all. And he’s so lovely like this, begging forgiveness without ever quite reaching true contriteness.

“Please,” he pleads. “Please, my lord, please, please— _John_ , please.”

He strains against his bonds. His pretty collar, soft brown calf’s skin, gilded over with leaping deer, chained to the tree. The leather cuffs on his wrists, pinning them to the small of his back, the cuffs on his thighs that link to saplings on either side of them, keeping him spread belly-down in the grass for hours. The one on his cock, holding back his relief as John leaves his hole dripping with come, paints his throat with more, and now lies over Chris, feeding his cock back into the man as Chris sobs and shakes.

John stops half-in and slaps the side of Chris’ buttock. Chris jerks his head and thighs off the ground, then falls slackly down, whimpering, trying to spread himself an impossible further inch as John slides in the rest of the way. This is deep in the heart of their woods, no one comes here without their consent, and no one _has_ come since John led his disobedient hunter here.

“But I can call them,” John whispers in Chris’ ear, as he pulls the man up against him, wraps his hand over Chris’ cuffed cock so that Chris cries out in urgent need. He slaps Chris again, against the inner thighs, made even more tender by the line of welts that were the first marks he left this time. “Call them here. Call your dogs. Not even your men, Chris, your dogs, have them circle around and see you, down like they are. Would that remind you whose hand you serve under?”

“Yours,” Chris says raggedly. He arches himself on John’s cock, a quivering, failing body, his head falling back to John’s shoulders. “Yours, yours, always, your hand—”

John breathes in sharply, then presses his nose to Chris’ hair and breathes in again. His hand’s tightened by accident and Chris loses his words, merely whines and shudders, trying to work his cock free. John holds him a moment longer, and then he unfastens the cuff, wraps his hand in its place, and lets the man loose. Chris hangs against him, caught in the sudden freedom, and then he comes apart against John, crying out and wrenching himself around John’s cock.

But when that’s over, when he’s calmed himself and the fever-heat of his skin has cooled, and he’s lying still again in the grass, his head turns and he still seeks out that kiss. He’d rather have that than be unbound, sucking at John’s lip when John would move to undo the other cuffs.

“Your hand,” Chris says, rough but content. He sighs as John smooths a palm over his thigh, thumb rubbing gently at the welts on the inside. “Yours, I know, but I kill them for you, never for me. Not since that first one.”

John’s deer die, but he has to admit, he counts it a more than fair price for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be part of a triptych of adult fairytale-type things, with Stiles and his dad as fairy lords of a Summer Woods that parallel the preserve. Going back to the whole _Cold as Ice, Red as Blood, Fair as Spring_ well, but less of a downer ending. Couldn't figure out a sustainable plot, and also the characterization is not as sharp as I'd like--sure, I like how the porn came out, but with this and with the next part, I think you could probably substitute in other characters and it'd still make sense, and that's not a good sign to me.
> 
> I'm in some weird damsel-in-distress!Chris mode, too. Dunno.


	5. Fairytale Porn: Stiles/Peter

Peter strays because he’s in heat, and his head is full of nothing but the need to ease the incessant, prickling burn under his skin.

He wades into the stream, and for a while the cool water eases his suffering. But somehow the fever in his body continues to mount, until even the current isn’t enough. It’s lukewarm as it sluices over him, but even that is too hot, and so he moves on. With the stream, hoping that he can simply seek a cooler place, but the water warms and warms and finally he clambers out onto the bank.

The breeze strokes delicious chilly fingers down his back and along his thighs, and he shivers in pleasure, then crawls onto a broad, shaded rock. He lets his legs drag and the rock’s roughness cuts through the thin film of water still clinging to him, sending jolts up his overworked nerves. Not unpleasant, not at all, and he can’t help pressing himself down, rubbing harder.

His skin is too tight, fit to split, and it pains him. He rubs harder, adding his fingers to scrape and shed the dampness, and he knows he’s too hard, he can smell the salt of his own blood in the air. But at the same time it feels so _good_ , that second when his skin stretches thin, just before it breaks, and he can’t stop himself.

It’s not his first heat, and anyway, he’s no fool, even if he has the control of a child right now, so he forces himself off the rock and into the more forgiving grass. The lush blades, full of spring juice, crush easily under him, filling his nose with their sweet sting, spreading wetness across his body. He moans to himself, then rolls over onto his back and pulls up his legs.

He’s wet all over from the river, but under that, between his buttocks and up their cleft behind his balls, he’s sticky. He’s leaking, badly, and when he pushes his fingers into himself, more slick squeezes out over his knuckles, mixing with the juices of the grass to scent the air with lust. Peter moans again, louder, and lets his head fall back, lets his throat bare to no one.

Or so he thinks, but as he lolls in the grass, fingering himself, his gaze crosses a pair of boots. Peter sucks in his breath.

Then he rolls over, but it’s already too late. He has a knee on the back of his neck, a hand roughly cupping his buttock, then seizing his wrist, keeping his fingers firmly within his hole. Another hand, leather-gloved, combs through his hair, pushing the soaked curls into his eyes as he struggles to snarl, to see.

“Well, well,” says a light, boyish voice, all birdsong and quicksilver and sly humor. “You should be keeping to your den at this time of year, wolf.”

Peter knows he’s crossed over from his woods to theirs. He’s known ever since he lifted his head from the stream and saw the bright green grass, felt the warm sunshine on his face. It’s well into autumn in his woods, but in theirs it’s always summer. But he knows the rules too, and he shakes his head even as the hand on his head wanders down to his nape, rubbing soft leather fingertips behind his ears, mixing its oiled earthiness into his scent.

“I didn’t kill anything, I didn’t take,” he protests.

“Oh, I know, I know. No one’s saying you have, pretty wolf.” The fae lord curls his hand along the side of Peter’s throat, warm firm pressure on just the spots to make Peter tremble. “But I would be a poor host if I ignored such distress. Look at you, all wet and shaking. You’re not well, are you?”

Peter isn’t one to bow his head lightly, no, but right now his body isn’t one to care about pride, or caution, or anything except whatever will ease the hot itch between his legs. And the lord, he’s lovely, with his fox smile, and his hands keep moving, touching, and they’re cool and smooth, so much so that Peter can’t help but turn into them. “No,” he groans. “No, I’m not.”

He’s tipped over onto his belly again. A gloved palm slides down his back, briefly chasing away the hard, overheated shivers that have been torturing his aching muscles, and Peter sighs and gives in. Spreads his legs, moves his fingers from his hole to his cock, and arches himself as a lovely hard cock presses into his shaking, fever-wracked body.

Peter gets fucked in the grass, fast and rough, hard enough so that his bones, built to stand up to brutal winter hunts, creak and groan. He sinks his claws into the ground, but the fae lord drives him along so the earth turns up under his hands in deep furrows. His teeth click as he moans and shudders, and still he gets fucked. The lord looks a slim, pretty thing, but he’s more than enough to handle Peter, keep him down, plow him open till even his heat can’t bear it.

The fever breaks, and Peter gasps, eyes wide open but blind, head flung back. He’s been in a burning haze for what seems like days, but it vanishes now, just drops away, and for a moment he pulls up into the clear, cool air.

Just for a moment. Then he’s on the torn ground again, panting, his fingers curling, come sticking the grass to his belly and slick running down the backs of his thighs, and he can already feel the burn creeping back over him. He moans, frustrated, and then he reaches down for himself.

“Oh, no,” says the lord, pinning his wrists. “No, I don’t think so. I’ve seen the way you touch yourself, wolf, you can’t be trusted with that. You’ll bleed yourself.”

“I heal,” Peter pants. He pulls at his arms, but he’s still weak. “Your concern—touching, I thank you, but—”

“But no. I’ll look after you,” says the lord, and then his teeth are at Peter’s throat. “After all, these are _my_ woods.”

He releases Peter. His hands and his cock, and the sudden loss leaves Peter swaying and unmoored, too dizzy to struggle up. But Peter does try. He rolls over onto his side and puts out his hand, meaning to wrap it around the tree root that curls out of the ground near him. He means to get up and leave, go find another quiet cool place for himself.

Instead the fae lord loops a silken cord around his wrist, and then pulls Peter over to him with it, laughing, his eyes alight with a delight that makes Peter whine and feel the bite of the lord’s teeth all over again.

The cord is thin and frail-looking, as light as a feather and just as soft, but it easily holds Peter despite his struggles. And the lord ties it very tightly, binding his wrists before him, and then pushing them to the center of his chest and wrapping the rope around his arms and torso. More rope is wound around his thighs and calves, doubling up his legs, leaving him open and at the lord’s mercy.

And the lord isn’t so merciful the second time, or the third. He strips off his fine clothes and he lies alongside Peter, touching Peter at his leisure. His fingers slide back into Peter’s hole, lazily massaging out endless streaks and dribbles of slick, till the ground beneath them is muddy with it. He mouths at the back of Peter’s neck, biting down whenever Peter twists too much, and with his other hand he roams Peter’s body, stroking and pinching and rubbing.

His fingers are still so cool against Peter’s heated skin, but they’re no relief. On the contrary, they seek out the spots on Peter that burn the most, that ache the most, that are tightest and most likely to break, and then they tease and flutter and they stoke that burn, that ache—but they never quite allow the fever to crest. No, instead they keep Peter teetering, his whole body seizing up, whimper after whimper spilling from his mouth, till he thinks he must be mad now, his mind boiled alive.

And then—and then the lord slips his cock into Peter again, wraps his hand around Peter’s cock. His teeth just tap against Peter’s throat, not even a graze, and Peter breaks as easily as a twig snapped underfoot.

“Better,” the lord murmurs, holding Peter as he trembles. A hand strokes through the fresh come on Peter’s belly, then rises to rub at a nipple, slowly working it out of its tight-clenched peak. Making it soft and sore, a slow but spreading ache that sets Peter to whimpering again. “Shh, no, you’ll be better soon.”

“Please,” Peter rasps. His throat hurts. It’s dry, and also he thinks he’s been sobbing. His eyes sting, he realizes. “Please, please, it’ll start again.”

The lord laughs, and then lifts Peter’s chin and kisses the side of his bared throat. “Don’t worry, wolf,” he says. “I’ll stay with you till it’s over.”

He takes Peter somewhere. Peter doesn’t know where, and he’s too thick with heat haze to care. Except that it’s warm and soft, this place, this bed that he’s rolled into. And dark, comfortable as the heat goes on and everything burns, even Peter’s eyes, too tired to stand the light—and cool. So cool, so very cool. Peter’s skin is burning and burning but no matter how he rubs himself, the sheets under him never warm.

Peter doesn’t do anything except burn. The lord rubs soft damp cloths over him sometimes, cleaning off the sweat and filth, and he can only whine and shiver as his heat turns that dampness to steam that he can almost taste. He eats from the lord’s hand, barely chewing in his hurry to finish and return to humping himself on a hard cock. He drinks the water he’s offered in great, sloppy gulps, and then drops his head to mewl in thirst, dizzy with fever. When he needs to relieve himself, the lord has to hold him up, cradle his cock, running a thumb along its length that makes it harden even as Peter struggles to slacken it enough to empty himself.

He’s tied to the bed—always his wrists, with that silky rope, and sometimes his thighs as well. He isn’t allowed to touch himself; the lord tends to his cock as well, milking it with a firm hand. When that’s too rough, when Peter’s skin is too raw for even the heat to numb, the lord nurses the come from his cock into a velvet throat and Peter sobs and sobs into the bedding, grateful and tortured in equal measures.

And he gets fucked. Fingers and cock and tongue, and other things too, hard blunt things that stretch his hole, strings of beads that twist and roll inside of him, sparking pleasure as the lord presses his fingers along Peter’s perineum, shifting them from without. He gets fucked and fucked, till he’s smelling the lord’s come mixed into his slick all the time, till he half-thinks that it’s not _his_ scent without that.

“Too much, wolf,” the lord tells him. “I have to clean you, you’re too much of a mess.”

“No,” Peter moans, even as a tongue laps the come out of him. He twists against his bonds, trying to raise his hips, but he’s so weak that when he slumps, he slides just a little further onto that tongue. That’s working in him, strong and relentless, digging and pushing and curling out every last drop. “No, no, I need it, don’t take it.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” the lord says, patting the back of his thigh. “Soon as I’m done here, I’ll put some back in you.”

Over and over again. Fucked full, come smearing out of him, sticking to the edges of his hole, and then licked empty. It’s madness, even more so than the heat itself, madness but irresistible, terrible in its all-consuming pleasure, and Peter stops fighting it. Just lies in the ropes, slack and open, his throat bared as the lord takes him, and he thinks that he will never want to be anywhere else again.

Then his heat ends. He remembers it very distinctly, a strange, chilly feeling, sidling in even as he sighs and curls against the lord. 

“Stay,” he murmurs, and the lord kisses him with a warm mouth that sends him into a deep, restoring sleep.

When Peter wakes, he’s lying by the stream in his woods. Clean and carefully arranged, his head pillowed on a finer coat than any he owns, a bundle of food and a waterskin sitting beside him. He’s whole and healthy, and yet, as he sits up, he feels a pain in him like his whole middle has been cut out.

He takes the coat, and the food and water, and he goes home. He’s been gone a day, nowhere near long enough to be missed, and the only worry that anyone expresses is that his heat ended so quickly.

And later, as he’s putting his affairs in order, that he might not be as clear-headed as he thinks. “They are masters of illusion,” his sister says, touching the waterskin. “I know you’ve already eaten and drunk—”

“Well, then you know there’s no point in intervening,” Peter says. Then he stops, because she is his sister, however they’ve differed. However they will go now, for their paths will never be the same again. “I knew which stream I was getting into, Talia. I wasn’t so heat-ridden as to be that lost. It’s only…I didn’t know where it might go, exactly. You can’t tell from this side, you know that, and sometimes it’s the one you see and sometimes it’s the other.”

She sighs, and for the last time she presses their foreheads together. “Always so careless,” she says. “But I do wish you well, brother.”

He kisses her cheek, and then he goes out into the woods. He finds the stream and steps into it, and when he steps out, a slim hand is offered to them.

Peter kneels under it instead, and the fae lord smiles, turning his hand so that it fits against the side of Peter’s neck. They’re still cool, his fingers, and deep in Peter, a fever begins to stir in response.

“I’m Stiles,” says the lord. “Come back to me, wolf?”

“Yes,” Peter says, just as their mouths press together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was the second part of the triptych. I think the characterization's even less developed than the previous, which is frustrating since I really wanted to do something different with the whole heat trope, which gets used a lot in TW, and I think I just ended up with pretty typical heat porn.


	6. Time-travel AU: Stiles, Peter, Lydia, Scott and Talia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time-travel AU, when Stiles and TBD jump back into the past to find young single-mother!Talia struggling with three young kids and a very, very jailbait Peter.

“So seriously, we’re here to change your future,” this Stiles says off-handedly, still staring at Peter.

“You’re here from the future,” Peter says. He sounds disbelieving. He’s actually not; given what he and his family are, time travel doesn’t seem that much of a stretch. And at any rate, these people appear to be killing hunters and not werewolves, so he sees no harm and much upside in humoring them anyway.

It’s just, well, the man is very aggressive. Very aggressive. He’s a good two inches taller than Peter, and he keeps insisting he’s not a werewolf himself but he’s continually pushing into Peter’s space like one. Like now, edging forward as he peers into Peter’s face, his head cocked in a way that is not in the least bit deferential and that is very much on the edge of an alpha challenge.

“Well, um, it’s kind of—so time travel is complicated, because paradoxes and collapsing continuums and look, I know you’re smart—well, you will—fuck, whatever, bottom line is, quantum physics is a _bitch_ to self-educate during the apocalypse and yeah, we’re from a future. Not your future, because that hasn’t happened yet, and—what?” Stiles says, half-turning. “Did we not just get you out of being slaughtered?”

“Stiles,” Lydia says wearily, over the sound of Talia snarling. “Stop creeping on Peter. It’s not helping.”

“What? I’m not—oh, my God, Lydia, _he’s_ always the creepy one—” Stiles says, and then he yelps and jumps as Talia abruptly slams into an invisible wall, just a few inches from Lydia. “Hey! Chill, okay, we’re not hurting you. That’s the whole point.”

“Yeah, let’s just calm down for a second,” Scott says, red eyes glowing. And then he turns around to face Stiles. “But maybe you, you know, don’t want to shove him up against the wall like that?”

Stiles frowns. “What are you talking about…oh. Oh, hey, sorry about that.”

He steps back from Peter, dusting at Peter’s clothes, and Peter slowly pries his claws out of the bricks behind him. Because for some reason, instead of raised hackles and vicious thoughts of vengeance, Stiles makes him freeze like a blinded baby deer. Peter makes a disgusted noise at himself, feeling an embarrassed flush go up his throat and into his face. And then he stiffens again as Stiles blinks hard, then reaches forward, his fingers coming right at Peter’s face.

“Get away from my brother!” Talia snaps.

“Damn it, Stiles,” Lydia says, abruptly pivoting. She grabs Stiles by the arm and bodily drags him away.

“What, I’m not doing anything to him,” Stiles protests. “It’s just, c’mon, look at him, he’s got _baby_ fat and I’m _significantly_ taller and just, Lyds, it’s like looking at evil in the pupae stage.”

“What did you say about Peter?” Talia says, the flesh on her shoulders rippling dangerously close to shift.

“What?” Peter says. “Wait, what? Pupae?”

“Oh, chill, I know you’re vain. I’m not saying you’re not cute, pupae are like the closest that the insect world gets to adorable, since larvae are usually all mucus-y and the adults are vectors of disease and whatever,” Stiles says dismissively. He looks at Peter another second, and then shakes his head and turns around. “Okay, anyway, so, Mama Hale and Baby Evil, let’s talk about all the stupid things you would have done in the next tenish years or so.”

Talia stares at him, a residual growl still rolling out of her even after Peter sidles off the wall and darts back to her side. She reaches back and grabs Peter’s wrist, and for once he doesn’t feel the least bit patronized by it. He’s glad for an elder sister, and an alpha, and mostly, just that he doesn’t have to sort out these people on his own.

“Look, we appreciate the help, but I need to get home,” Talia finally says, when it becomes clear that nobody is moving out of the way. “My children—”

Lydia doesn’t move, but her interest visibly sharpens and somehow, despite her being very much shorter than Talia, she manages to give off the credible impression that that is something to be taken seriously. “Has Cora been born yet?”

Talia presses her lips together, then glances at Peter. He moves up to her shoulder, grateful for the attention, but…to be honest, he really doesn’t know how they should handle that either.

“Well, fine, does Derek have the hilarious bowl cut?” Stiles says. “We gotta be far enough back to finally see that in person, right? I mean, if Evil Peter is Baby Evil—”

“Would you stop calling my brother evil?” Talia says angrily, tugging Peter closer to her. “If you really want us to trust you, you could do without the insults.”

“Okay, okay, I think we need to start over,” Scott says, stepping slightly in front of Stiles. “You know what, you guys just go home, and take time and think it over. You should be cool till…next week…”

Lydia examines her nail. “We already have to get rid of these bodies, we might as well just deal with that too.”

“Two weeks, then,” Scott says. “Then we’ll swing by. I think we’ll all be much calmer then, and that’d be a lot better for discussing this, right?”

Talia agrees just to get them out of there, and twenty minutes later, unbelievably, she and Peter are safely back at their temporary rental. Mostly unharmed, not suffering any wolfsbane side-effects, and they’ve barely pulled off the weepy, relieved children when the doorbell rings.

“It’s Chinese take-out,” Peter says, closing the door and staring at the plastic bag dangling from his hand. “Paid for.”

His sister hisses at Laura to keep Derek and Cora quiet for a second, and then grabs the bag from Peter and digs into it. She comes up with a greasy note, which she unfolds and reads aloud. “‘Sorry that was weird, here are all your, which is crossed out and then they put, Derek’s favorites, or anyway, they’ll be Derek’s favorites, and Peter gets his General Tso’s chicken. See you in two weeks. If you need us sooner, call Alan Deaton because we need to get period-appropriate phone plans.’”

“They’re strangely thorough for time travelers,” Peter says.

Talia flicks him one of her looks, and then grimaces as Derek complains that he’s hungry. She looks at the bag a little longer, and then she sighs and sits down at the couch and starts taking out the containers. “Please tell me you read all about this in a book.

“Well, yes, but unfortunately, they were of the H.G. Wells variety, not actually references,” Peter says. He can’t help a sniff and then, humiliatingly, his stomach growls. And when he looks over, he finds that Laura has just pried open the…yes, the General Tso’s. “I’m cute like an insect?”

His sister looks at him again, and then drops her head to pinch the bridge of her nose. “Oh, no, Peter, please don’t.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Peter says, going over to get his share before Derek’s bottomless stomach takes everything. “I have no idea what _they_ mean, for that matter. I just…honestly, Talia, I have no clue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this will get written out, it's just a matter of figuring out what subplots do and don't get to stay. Right now, it's definitely got age-flip!Stiles/Peter with Peter being the too curious for his own good teenager and Stiles being the super-cynical adult, and Peter and Talia are caught in transition because their parents just got killed and Talia's only recently become head of pack and she's lost her mate as well. But other than that, I have too many plot ideas and that stuff needs to get cut down so it doesn't end up an incoherent jokey mess.
> 
> I think Lydia and Talia are going to hook up, too. Go back and forth on whether to just keep it Lydia and Stiles jumping back, or have Scott there too, and how to bring in the Argents.
> 
> ETA: Expanded into a series [here](http://archiveofourown.org/series/465526).


	7. The Amazing Adventures of Peter-pi and Derekchu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Derek are Pikachu with a twist, and are totally devoted to Stiles.

“Oh, they’re Pikachu,” Scott says, blinking.

The brown-eyed one scowls at him. At least, he thinks it does; he’s been watching it hop around the pen for a few minutes now, drinking water and grooming itself and hunching over in its little bed-basket, and its mouth has been in the exact same downturned expression the entire time. But he does think that somehow, it’s made itself look even more grumpy.

“Yeah, what did you think they we—oh, right, sorry, I always forget,” Stiles says, coming over. “The coat color throws a lot of people.”

He puts his hands down into the pen and both Pikachu immediately rush over to him, lifting their forepaws and squeaking to be lifted. The brown-eyed one’s mouth _does_ straighten out, Scott notes, even though it doesn’t really turn up at the corners. Scott frowns and looks more closely at it, but the Pikachu seems healthy, if a bit bulky. Still, it’s strange that it’s not smiling, considering Pikachu are known for their sunniness.

Then again, Pikachu also are known for their bright yellow fur, but these two have jet-black coats. Their bellies are a little lighter, more like charcoal-grey, but other than that, they’re one solid color.

“These are a very rare subspecies from the Hale forest,” Stiles says, plopping the grumpy one in Scott’s hands. “Say hi, Derek.”

Derek’s back to scowling. He squints up at Scott, and then slaps out when Scott tries to bend down and smile at him. And then, when Scott recoils, Derek shimmies free of Scott’s grip and jumps onto Stiles’ shoulder, where he turns and gives Scott a baleful look. “Derek- _chu_ ,” Derek says, and honestly, it really sounds like a growl.

“Uh, sorry, they’re kind of…well, you heard what happened, right, huge forest fire,” Stiles says, both chagrined and defensive. He reaches up and pats Derek and Derek nuzzles his hand. And sort of droops at the ear-tips when Stiles takes the hand away. “Anyway, Derek and Peter here—” he nods at the one happily cuddling in his arms “—they got burned out and I’m taking care of them while Dad and the team get the fire under control.”

Scott nods and tries not to feel so weirded out by Derek running from him. So Pokémon might normally love him, but these two have obviously been through some terrible experiences. “Poor things,” he says. “Is that why they’re that color?”

“Hmm, no, they’re this color all the time,” Stiles says. He’s a little distracted by something on his laptop, and he bends over to look at the screen. “That’s why they’re such a rare subspecies, they really blend into the dark, so it’s hard to see one, let alone catch one. And the Hale forest has all those weird stories about it, you know, it’s haunted and whatever and some people even say that the Pikachu that live there, they’re monsters too.”

“Really?” Scott says, laughing. He moves closer to take another look at Peter, who actually seems to have bright blue eyes. “But they’re Pikachu! They’re starters.”

Peter’s also a lot sunnier than Derek, smiling up at Scott and lifting and wiggling his paws as if inviting Scott to pick him up. Scott puts out a hand and—it’s a little blurry, but he thinks that Peter abruptly flips over and then reaches past him, because he feels fur brush his arm. And then Peter’s cozied back in Stiles’ arms, with—he’s got Scott’s phone in his paws.

Scott frowns and Peter beams at him and there’s a little _zzztz_ and suddenly smoke is curling up from his phone. “Hey, what the—did you just—” Scott says.

Stiles looks over, then groans. “Peter, damn it, what did I tell you about—I’m so sorry, they’re wild, you know, so Peter here keeps grabbing people’s phones and he just thinks they’re toys, and—look, I actually think I have a spare in the back. Let me just go get it.”

He puts Peter down on the office chair, with a comment to leave his laptop alone. Peter looks up at Stiles and nods, oddly grave, especially since he’s still holding Scott’s phone in his forepaws. Then Stiles pries Derek off his shoulders and puts him down next to Peter. “Back in a sec—oh, no, don’t do that, c’mon, Derek, you know I’ll come back,” he says.

Derek looks up at him, ears definitely drooping, all the way down his back, and then makes a mournful noise as Stiles gives his head a quick rub.

“Okay, just watch them, would you?” Stiles says, turning towards the door. “They’re really well-behaved most of the time, shouldn’t give you any trouble.”

“Sure,” Scott says.

He looks at the two Pikachu, but then starts as the door closes behind Stiles. That was kind of loud. Not that Scott’s the nervous type, but…he shuffles in place, wondering why he feels so shifty all of a sudden, and then he looks back at the Pikachu. Musters up a smile for them and then puts his hand out.

“Well, it’s just us for a few minutes,” he says. “Want to give me back my phone, Peter?”

Peter blinks curiously at him. “Peter-pi?” he chirps. 

He looks at the phone, then at Scott. Then, as if it’s just a dead leaf or something like that, he tosses the phone away from him. Far away from him. As in, it clatters off the wall and then hits the floor across the room, while Scott grimaces and whirls and then takes a useless step towards it.

“My phone!” Scott says. He looks at it—man, he can see little bits of broken glass under it, the screen must’ve shattered—and then he turns back to the Pikachu. He’s trying to keep his temper, just reminding himself that they don’t know what they’re doing, and then…

…they look different. Derek’s straightened up and he looks—for a small electric mouse, he looks very…very threatening. And Scott can’t help but think that Derek had been pretty solid-feeling, for the couple seconds he’d held the Pikachu. Not fat, but muscle.

As for Peter, he’s still smiling, but it’s unnervingly wide. He’s showing a lot of teeth and Pikachu should really just have the big front incisors, but Peter has big, pointy teeth, more like a shark than a mouse. “Peter _pi_ ,” he says, shaking his paw like a reprimanding schoolteacher.

“Um,” Scott says.

“Derek-chu,” Derek snarls—it’s a snarl, it absolutely is a snarl, and then Derek’s eyes start glowing red.

Scott takes a step back without thinking. Then, screaming, he lunges for the protection of the nearest desk as the two Pikachu jump at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no intention of fleshing this one out into a full fic, although I might put up more ficlets in this 'verse later. I just had this sudden, random mental image of Peter and Derek as unusually homicidal black-furred Pikachu who are uber-protective of an oblivious Stiles and who use their cuteness to lure anyone who opposes Stiles, or even remotely threatens him, to their doom. Sort of Pokémon horror-comedy along the lines of _Gremlins_.


	8. The Amazing Adventures of Peter-pi and Derekchu, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lydia meets Peter-pi and Derekchu

“And this one is Peter,” Stiles says, affectionately ruffling the Pikachu’s ears.

“Piiii,” it coos, tipping its head up into Stiles’ hand, eyes half-closed, looking so content that even Lydia’s proudly shriveled heart twitches a little.

Of course, then their food order is up and Stiles goes to get it, leaving Lydia in charge of his two Pikachu, and Lydia’s not about to let a heart-twitch get in the way of common sense. She grabs Peter under the forelegs and lifts him up to eye-level, and then swivels so that she can also take in Derek, who’s sitting on the table-top, with her glare.

“Peter-pi?” Peter says, as innocently confused as an electric mouse can be.

“Chu!” Derek says, jerking up on his hindlegs.

Still, he’s too startled to really get going, and Lydia takes advantage of that. “Now you listen, and listen good. I’m on to your adorable act and there’s nothing you can teach me about that. I graduated just behind Stiles in Pokémon studies and everybody was shocked because they could’ve _sworn_ I was just in university to get myself a rich husband. And you’re not going to terrorize me like everyone else because that man walking into the cafeteria? That’s my ex.”

Derek scowls at her, clearly not following. Peter blinks in surprise, considers her, and then switches to a bored expression. “Pi,” he says dismissively.

“Well, you care because that asshole not only cheated on _me_ , he did it with the woman who nearly got Stiles’ father booted because he opted to save a family’s house instead of her car,” Lydia says, narrowing her eyes at Peter. “And if you behave, then I _might_ consider letting you in on our six-stage revenge plan. We’re on stage four.”

Then Lydia puts Peter down on Stiles’ seat. She gives her hands a quick dusting—black fur doesn’t quite blend into her brown skirt, though it’s a vast improvement over banana yellow—and then stands up as Stiles returns with their food tray. Jackson’s predictably trailed Stiles over and Lydia goes over to help verbally evict the jackass.

Back at the table, Derek hops down from the table to the chair, stares at Peter for a second, and then pokes Peter in the side of the head. “Derekchu,” Derek says. “Chu. Chu!”

Peter jumps a little, but doesn’t stop gazing admiringly after Lydia. “Peter-piiiii…” he sighs, little hearts in his eyes.

Derek puts his face in his forepaw. “ _Chu_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, apparently many people besides me find the idea of Derek and Peter as Pikachu attractive. I feel a little better about my weird musings.
> 
> I still have no plans to spin this out beyond ficlets, but in this world, Lydia would be Stiles' love interest (Peter's for it, Derek is neutral-to-grumpy about it but Lydia intimidates him). And instead of quests, they conduct cutting-edge field research studies that are always in danger of being sabotaged by unsavory types until the Pikachu save the day (this may now be looking a little more _Indiana Jones_ than _Gremlins_ ).


	9. PWP: Chris Argent, gangbang, Scott

The man fucking Chris is getting erratic, his hands slipping on Chris’ thighs till he finally lets go of them and just grabs the ropes that are holding Chris’ legs open. He yanks on them till the metal rings anchoring them to the wall start to creak, and somebody reprimands him from the hall. Irritated, the man drops the ropes and then hauls his arm back and slaps Chris’ right buttock. His claw-tips catch and leave stinging arcs across the top of Chris’ hipbone.

Chris barely feels it. He’s so tired at this point that his senses are all askew: the hard-packed dirt underneath him bothers him more, seems more present than the cock driving into his ass or the blood dripping down his skin. When the man finally comes, both Chris and he gasp in relief.

The man doesn’t fall on him, thankfully. Just hunches over Chris, breathing hard, while his cock slowly softens. Feels like it’s pulling out too, receding and leaving Chris’ overworked ass to try and support itself and Chris can’t do that, ends up whining and trying to bear down, squeeze his muscles to close the gap even though he can’t even lift his head off the ground. The werewolf snarls at him and he automatically twitches his head to the side, best he can do at submitting.

For all the good that does, he might as well have just flashed his teeth. The cock jerks unceremoniously out of him and it’s like Chris’ insides are wet tissue paper and somebody’s raking them over with sandpaper. It’s agonizing in a way that makes him twist against the ropes, grinding his head and ass into the dirt, trying to arch the empty burn out of himself.

He’s too weak to keep it up, just squirms a few times and then slumps back, panting, his throat just as dry and sore as his hole. His hands twist where they’re crossed and bound to his chest and he smells his own blood, but even that’s tired, dulled by the layers of scabbing that have dried under and around the rope. His feet drop like lead weights, swinging an inch or so above the ground.

Chris lies there for a second or two. On his back, used and spent, covered in crusts of dirt and blood and come and spit. Some of the crusts are so dried-out that they’re splitting and flaking, a faint but insistent itch along the side of his head, down one shoulder, dragging across his left nipple and then tracking back over his belly. His thighs are clean in comparison, but only because everybody’s been grabbing those and rubbing off the filth as they fuck him. They’re handy, with how the ropes coiled around them hang his legs up.

He thinks it’s over, and then, God, he feels it. Breath against the insides of his thighs, air gusting down over the tops and up into the nose and mouth that press into his groin. They shaved him before it started—the girl doing it told him, snickering, that he’d thank her for saving him the trouble of combing out the dirt—but Chris isn’t thanking anybody for how horrendously tender the skin there is now. First the shaving, and then the friction of body after body rubbing against him, and then this: a mouth, a swipe of a tongue, the graze of teeth.

They lick him out afterwards, every single one of them. Back when he was still capable of coming himself, they wouldn’t even wait for him to stop shaking, would just dive in and start tonguing his hole and send him into rough, hurting cries as his unstrung nerves burned out. Now he’s too tired for that, his balls feel like sacs filled with smoldering hot coals but they’ve got nothing in them, completely wrung out, but they still do that.

This one’s doing that and Chris whimpers and twists his head from side to side, twitches his fingertips against the dried tracks of sweat on his chest, literally all he can do as the werewolf jams up against him, hair rasping at Chris’ already chafed balls and cock, tongue plunging over and over into Chris’ hole. Excavating every last drop of come, long relentless strokes that push firmly against his insides, trick his body into thinking maybe it’ll get the pressure it’s still perversely craving.

And then it pulls out and leaves Chris aching down to the roots of his teeth, a limp, twisting ache that won’t go away no matter how he tries to close his eyes and just will himself into apathy. He keeps thinking it has to be too much, he can’t take any more, his mind has to just shut down at some point, and it won’t. And they keep bending down and pushing his buttocks apart and scouring out his hole.

He wants it to stop. He does. He can’t do this. He said he would, but he can’t. But every time they stop, he starts sobbing because he can’t take it when he’s falling apart but if he’s not falling apart, if they aren’t taking him to pieces, then he’s just…nothing.

“Hey,” says somebody. “You going to do it, then?”

There’s somebody else in the shed now. Standing over Chris, a dark form that he can barely see through the tears in his eyes. It just registers that the newcomer has red eyes and Chris sucks in his breath, rocks against the ropes holding up his legs, uses up the last of his energy trying to muster up a couple words.

It’s stupid. He doesn’t even have enough spit in his mouth to lick his lips. When the alpha squats down and then bends over, puts his face right over Chris’ and exhales, the moisture in his breath feels like a drenching downpour, winkling into all the cracks of Chris’ parched mouth.

“Well, he definitely smells like one of us,” says the werewolf between Chris’ legs. “Reeks like—”

“Can you go?” says the alpha. He moves his head down so it’s over Chris’ neck and inhales; he sweeps his nose from side to side as he does and the variation in the air whispering over Chris’ skin feels like a finger stroking down over Chris’ Adam’s apple. “I’ll finish up here.”

“You want me to tell Stiles?” says the other werewolf.

The alpha nods, still sniffing his way down Chris. He gets to Chris’ hands and lifts one with his finger, then wipes at some of the dried blood and mutters a little under his breath. The other werewolf gets up and takes a step towards the door, and then turns.

“Get me some water too,” says the alpha.

“There’s the hose in the corner,” says the other werewolf.

The alpha looks up and Chris senses more than sees the other werewolf tense up. “Oh, right,” is all the alpha says. He ducks under Chris’ leg and then comes up again between Chris’ knees, breathing slow and deep. “Well, never mind. Just…Isaac, can you just go?”

“All right, all right,” Isaac says. “But you know Peter—”

“Peter is Stiles’ problem,” the alpha says sharply.

Isaac hesitates a little longer, but then the alpha dips his head. He isn’t licking at Chris’ hole, not yet, he’s just smelling, but Chris jerks his knees, shaking, choking on his attempt to whimper, he’s so desperate. Wanting to get away, wanting to have it, just nothing but want now and it’s such a tangled, vicious want that all he can do with it is lie there and bleed with it.

“If you say so,” Isaac says, walking out.

The door closes and for some reason the thud of it is jarring to Chris’ ear. He twists and the alpha suddenly seizes the ropes tied to his legs. Chris whines and forces his exhausted body into a bow, and then the ropes go slack and his legs fall with terrifying speed, because he’s got no strength to stop them and for a second he thinks all of him is falling, is going to smash into the ground.

The alpha catches him up by the ropes, cut ends already unraveling, then carefully lowers his legs to the ground. Even then, it’s painful, long-cramped muscles tearing themselves as they finally unlock, and when they’re finally all the way down, a rough sob bursts from Chris and only then does he realize he’s bitten through his lip again.

“Damn,” the alpha mutters. “Damn.”

Chris drags in a breath, and then another. His head lolls against the floor and he watches the ceiling beam sway like a swing, before it’s replaced by the alpha’s face. He licks at the blood on his lips, tries to work his throat. Coughs once, and then tries again, and just ekes out one rusty word: “Scott?”

“Yeah,” Scott says. “You still—”

Chris nods. And then keeps nodding, even when his neck muscles start to burn and his head swims with nausea. He’s just too out of it, just can’t see Scott, make out the man’s expression and he wants to make sure Scott understands because there’s no way he can do this again. He’ll die, he’ll never survive a second round and he—

There’s a bright, tearing pain in his left thigh, almost pleasurable in how sharp it is against the mass of dully insistent bruising that’s his body. Chris whips against it, feeling how Scott’s teeth just sink deeper into his flesh, and then God, he finally passes out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I was kind of toying with a pseudo-medieval AU idea, where Scott and Stiles are dual alphas running the pack again, and Chris ends up begging for sanctuary for whatever reason. And because he's a hunter, the price of entry is he has to submit to everybody before he gets bitten, and he'd maybe be aged down and eventually he'd get paired up with Scott. But I couldn't really see how to get Scott _that_ dark.
> 
> There were some other, more fun ideas where the pack also holds up fancy coaches, and Stiles does the whole old-timey English highwayman thing and kidnaps wastrel!noble!Peter and those two have crazy sex in riding boots against trees. That stuff may get salvaged, if it ever ends up not sounding like a lame take on a bodice-ripper.


	10. The Amazing Adventures of Peter-pi and Derekchu, Part 3

“Well, obviously they aren’t going to react well if you just dump them in a bucket of water deeper than they are tall. They’re not water Pokémon, you idiot,” Stiles snaps over his shoulder as he walks away.

The lumpy towel bundle in his arms shifts and Stiles reluctantly cuts off his remaining insults so that he can turn into the tent city the first responders have set up. He pauses for a second to plump up the bundle, then can’t help a hiss as it wiggles again.

“Okay, okay, I know, just chill for two more sec…here we are, home sweet…well, okay, it’s a tent, but it’s a lot better than being in one of the rescue pens,” he says, ducking into his tent. He pauses to tug the zipper down behind him, then carefully sets the bundle on top of his sleeping bag. “Not that the pens are bad stuff, you need them when you’ve got a whole bunch of different species stacked up on each other for temporary reasons, but a tent is better. And I bet a nice, soft sleeping bag is even better yet.”

The towel stirs uneasily. Stiles frowns and reaches out, then stops as part of the towel opens up to show a pair of glowing eyes within it. Which is _so_ cool, he’s never seen Pikachu with—he makes himself stop his inner geek for a second. Poor things are traumatized, they don’t need him acting like any other so-called ‘trainer.’

“Hey,” he finally says, when nothing else happens. “Um, hey…it’s okay, you know.”

The eyes blink at him. Then the towel suddenly peels down, revealing two Pikachu crouched together. The blue-eyed one has its forepaw on the brown-eyed one’s back and is tilted up, sniffing the air, while the brown-eyed one frowns at Stiles, then at the bag.

“Der-chu,” the brown-eyed one says, poking the bag.

“Pi?” The other one twists completely around and then hops over a few inches. It pumps the bag with its hind feet, testing the feel or something, and then it tilts its head and looks surprised. Then leans over and massages the bag till it has a little hollow, in which it promptly curls up. “Peter-pi!”

“Well, you’d better like it,” Stiles says. “This stuff is real down, waterproofed and rated to forty below. My—my mom gave it to me and she knew her camping equipment, believe me. It’s the one piece of gear I never go out without.”

The two Pikachu look quizzically at him. Then the brown-eyed one frowns even more (it has such a little scowly face that Stiles is experiencing odd urges to cuddle it) and gives the bag a skeptical poke. “Derekchu?”

“Stiles?” calls his father.

“Coming, just getting some snacks!” Stiles calls over his shoulder. “Crap, gotta get back to work. Look, I’m gonna trust you, so…oh, here, have some snacks, try to keep the mess off my bag, okay? I’ll be back in a few, so just nap, watch things, make sure it’s all cool. Okay?”

He can hear his father coming, so unfortunately, he doesn’t have the time to do more than drop a few treats and then scramble out of the tent. Honestly, it’s probably not the greatest idea he’s ever had, but he figures the Pikachu have to be exhausted after everything they’ve gone through, and he really won’t be gone too long.

Back in the tent, the two Pikachu look at each other, then nod. They rarely agree on much, but even after this short of a time, they both can see the obvious here: Mission accepted.

* * *

_Many exploratory missions later_

“Oh, my God, what happ—” Stiles says, seeing the wrecked campsite. He grabs the ranger’s arm, yanking them back, and then runs forward, only to be tackled at the knees by two black blurry things. “Derek! Peter! Where—oh, thank God.”

“Just let them have their reunion, I think the suspects are over here anyway,” Lydia says, giving the ranger a nice pat on the arm while smiling up at him. And then redirecting him towards the whimpering man tangled up in the overturned picnic table.

“I’m sorry!” the man screams as soon as they come up. “I got paid to do it! I’ll tell you everything, just keep them away from me!”

Lydia hands the ranger his notepad, then pulls out her phone. “Corporate espionage, potential trade secret theft, trespass,” she says, dialing a number. Then she frowns and looks at the ranger. “I’m sorry, are you not going to write that down? I think a list would be handy, since I believe there are going to be a _lot_ of charges and we wouldn’t want to miss one.”

“Seriously,” Stiles huffs, coming over to them. “And animal abuse better be on there.”

“Are you crazy?” says the man stuck in the table.

Stiles glares at him. “Look at how terrified they are, you sick freak,” he snaps. “They’re just Pikachu, what the hell did they ever do to you?”

And the two Pikachu Stiles is carrying do indeed look utterly terrified, shivering and making small, heartrending squeaks. They don’t even seem to want to look up, but instead just keep their faces stuffed against Stiles’ chest.

The ranger, obviously touched, asks Stiles if he can just read off the GPS coordinates so they can call for back-up. Stiles obliges, but as he turns towards the ranger, Derek peers around Stiles’ arm.

The man screams at what he sees. Which, if you were at his angle, would’ve consisted of a horrifying vision of far too many sharp white teeth crammed into a wide-open mouth, right below two eyes blazing like hellfire.

“Oh, honestly, give them here, I’ll watch them while you’re on the radio,” Lydia says loudly, stepping up as the ranger jerks his head up. She takes Peter and Derek before the ranger can get a good look at them and then walks off a few paces, far enough so she can hiss at them without the ranger overhearing. “Don’t overdo it, you little drama queens. If he cops an insanity plea we’ll never be able to use his testimony against his boss.”

“Chu,” Derek mutters grumpily, while Peter sighs and rolls his eyes. And grabs a surreptitious sniff of Lydia’s hair.

Lydia rolls her own eyes. “Peter.”

“Pi,” Peter says, sulky, but he subsides. He waits his chance till Lydia turns to listen to Stiles and the ranger talk into the ranger’s radio, and then he quickly lifts himself to be seen over her shoulder. He makes a slicing motion with his forepaw across his throat, smiling cheerfully at the man.

Who whimpers again, then starts calling for his mother. Satisfied, Peter and Derek snuggle into Lydia’s arms. The campsite might look a mess, but the tent is intact and most importantly, Stiles’ cherished sleeping bag doesn’t have a mark on it. Mission accomplished.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pikachu!Peter is still a creeper, obviously. And he and Derek are forever grateful that Stiles saved them from the overenthusiastic rescue team with the too-deep bucket (because they didn't realize that black fur was natural, and not covered in soot) and plopped them into a pampered life as pets, sidekicks, and super-sekrit bodyguards.


	11. The Amazing Adventures of Peter-pi and Derekchu, Part 4

“They’re moving,” Lydia says.

Stiles doesn’t even look up from his laptop. “Yeah, that means they’re dreaming. They’re just acting out what they’re dreaming about, so their paws twitch a little. Cute, isn’t it?”

She supposes they are, in their way. The pair of them are snuggled down in where the afghan dips between her and Stiles, and up till a few minutes ago, had been perfectly silent, fluffy little balls. Then Peter had twisted over, belly-up with his paws pulled in towards himself, and his tail had started to twitch against Lydia’s arm.

At first she’d assumed that, as with ninety-nine percent of Peter’s antics, one, he was fully conscious of what he was doing and two, he was consciously angling for his own selfish pleasures, and had no compunctions about taking his tail and tugging it away from where it was tickling her. But when Peter hadn’t protested, she’d looked down and had ended up watching in bemusement as he willingly cuddled up to his own tail, allowing her to tuck it under his forepaws.

That’s when Peter had started to make odd, nasally squeaks while smiling, and to flip one forepaw around as if…as if he were gesturing, looking very much like a small, mouse-shaped person making a grand speech. Next to him, Derek had grunted twice, then rolled from his side onto his belly, ears flattening down to push his head further into the couch cushions. Lydia had assumed Derek was being disturbed by the noise and was unhappy about it, except that Derek had abruptly scooted up a couple inches. He’d frozen in place and she had been debating whether to move him to her other, quieter side when he’d suddenly done a sharp, corkscrewing twist that had put him partly onto his side again.

From that angle she can see part of his face and he’s smiling. Smiling very broadly, showing his fangs and looking uncharacteristically cheerful. Something moves near his mouth: his paws, curled tightly against an imaginary thing that he’s happily throttling, making distinct twisting motions with his forelegs.

“You know, they get so twitchy sometimes, I wish we could tell what they’re dreaming about,” Stiles adds absentmindedly. “The Hale Forest is such a weird place, you’d think if any Pokémon would have weird dreams, they would. Right?”

As he speaks, he reaches out—without looking away from his laptop—and gives the back of Derek’s head a quick ruffle, then moves on to rub Peter’s belly. Derek stops strangling whatever it is and flops out with a contented snore, while Peter sprawls all four limbs out, releasing his tail, his blissful expression occasionally showing past Stiles’ hand.

“Well, whatever they dream about, they do seem to be happy,” Lydia says after a second.

Stiles finally looks up, grinning at her and then at his Pikachu. “Awww, don’t they? You know, I’m probably overthinking it, I bet they just have nice peaceful dreams about gathering food and sunbathing and scampering around.”

“Yes,” Lydia says, looking at them. Specifically, at Peter’s suspiciously fluttery eyelid, which suddenly squeezes tight when she leans over him. “I’m sure that that’s _exactly_ what they dream about.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, when I first came up with this idea, I hadn't heard of Pokémon Go. And now every time I hear about the game, I end up daydreaming about Peter-pi and Derekchu.


	12. Were-cat Stiles AU

“And don’t give me any bullshit about feline hissy fits, you assholes!” Stiles shouts through the door, which is still trembling from being slammed shut. “I don’t have _time_ to correct you because I am _cleaning_ your stereotypical cave-dog literal _shit_!”

“Stiles, I’m sorry—” Scott stammers.

“I mean you, too, Scott! I swear to God, I love you but one rule, _one_ rule, do not fuck with the sand and what does your drunk hook-up do? Fuck with it!” Stiles’ voice fades as he stomps back through the apartment, in the direction of the bathroom. “You’re out too till I don’t have to discuss it while smelling this!”

Scott breathes in deeply, hand raised to knock on the door, and then…lets it out in a resigned sigh. “He usually means that.”

“We didn’t even hook up,” Derek mutters.

His uncle shoots him a look, which Derek is immune to at this point in his life. Derek, however, is not immune to the way Scott suddenly pivots and looks irritably at him, with reddening eyes and a slight subvocal alpha growl that makes him hunch before he realizes what he’s doing.

“That’s not the point, okay, that’s—look, he’s going to be mad for at least ten minutes,” Scott says, shaking his head. He puts his hand up and rubs at his eyes, then digs around in his pockets. When he comes up with his wallet, he looks relieved. “Well, you probably could use coffee anyway, right?”

Derek was momentarily distracted by the fact that, when Scott isn’t alpha-ing him, the man is shorter and slighter and just not imposing at all, and so he can’t believe he just tried to flash throat. “What?”

“He’s not going to open the door, you’re gonna have to wait to get your clothes,” Scott says, sliding past him. “I usually just get an iced coffee downstairs and wait till he texts me that he’s calmed down. I mean, you can wait here if you want, but Mr. Cantarelli in 5G is a little paranoid about strange people in the hall and probably will call the cops on you.”

“Wait a second, you’re—you’re an alpha, and you’re just going to…” Derek starts. And then stops because Scott’s already in the elevator and the doors are closing on him. So yes, Scott really is letting his were-cat roommate kick him out of his apartment.

“Derek, might I remind you that you voluntarily ran out the front door,” Peter says. “Also, yes, you just said that out loud, and yes, I know how long Stiles’ fangs looked, I was right behind you and retreating was absolutely the prudent option.”

“I—” Then Derek stops again, because he is a werewolf and has a working nose. And his uncle…

His uncle smells turned on. His uncle is still looking at the closed door.

“This Scott seems like a knowledgeable fellow, you know,” Peter muses. “Not at all like the usual people you pick up during your misadventures.”

“I wasn’t picking him up, he picked me up, and he wasn’t coming onto me, he was nagging me about responsible drinking and staying hydrated and Peter. Peter. I am _not_ making friends with him just so you can figure out how to get into his roommate’s pants,” Derek snaps. “Besides, were-cat? Do you even know anything about were-cats?”

“No, but I’m sure a little research will take care of that,” Peter says cheerfully.

“So you can just read your books yourself,” Derek says. “You’re the one with the sociology degree, it’s not like I can understand them. You know I got shitty grades in science.”

Peter finally drags his eyes over to Derek. “Research isn’t just the literature, Derek, and you _will_ help me. You owe me.”

“Not like this!” Derek snaps. “Over my dead body.”

Five minutes later, Derek trudges into the café on the building’s first floor, looking for Scott.

* * *

“Chris Argent, right?” says the man standing on Chris’ doorstep. “John Stilinski. I’m the sheriff here.”

“Oh, right,” Chris says, blinking, his mind still half on the box he’d been unpacking when the doorbell had rung. That has to be why the thought running through it right then is that John is tall. Taller than him, even though John’s stooping a little, not like he’s trying to match Chris’ height so much as like he’s trying to…to crowd his shoulders into the space between them, and those are some pretty broad shoulders. “What, sorry—oh, oh, yeah, I am—”

“Licensed properly, which I was glad to see,” John says, smiling, squeezing Chris’ hand that he’s somehow gotten hold of. “You might not think it from the size, but this is a pretty diverse town, all kinds of weres and humans and we generally all get along. I’m a were-lion myself, and I take a lot of pride in how Beacon Hills is a real welcoming place. We just usually don’t see reason to fight with each other.”

“Great, great,” Chris grunts. Were-lion. Okay. He can—he can definitely see that, with the dusty blond hair and the slightly sharp smile, even unshifted, and when John _is_ shifted, he must be an impressive…Chris hisses as his hand gets twisted just painfully enough to break through his scattered thoughts.

But he’s barely even started that when John releases him, stepping back onto the front walk. “Well, I just wanted to stop by and say hi,” John says. “Let you know that you being a hunter doesn’t mean we’ll overlook you.”

“Uh.” Chris blinks again, then belatedly raises his hand, only to find himself staring at John’s retreating back. And even with polyester pants, the back view is…he blinks again. Did he just get threatened?

“Dad?” Allison comes up behind him, frowning, her arms folded across her chest. “Dad, I didn’t hear all of that but I heard that bit at the end and that didn’t sound great. Do we need to call up the sheriff and ask why his men are harassing us?”

Chris shakes his head. “That was the sheriff, actually.”

“What?” Allison says, outrage creeping into her voice. “That’s just not—that’s just so unfair. Anybody who just takes the trouble to Google us would know that…Dad? Dad, are you…are you blushing?”

“It’s hot,” Chris says, looking at her. In her sweater, because it’s _northern_ California and November. “In here. And we’ve been doing a lot of unpacking, I think my age is catching up to me.”

“Dad, oh, my God,” Allison sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to figure out how to spin this one into an actual story, but haven't settled on POVs yet. Anyway, it's mostly an excuse to trot out a lot of cat-dog jokes and Peter chasing after a skeptical Stiles, while Scott is a weirdo alpha werewolf whose pack consists of a pride of were-lions, Derek is a long-suffering asshole (I miss asshole!Derek so much, he was entertaining, and Hoechlin is so good at assholes, just see _Everybody Wants Some!!_ where he also dresses in short-shorts and a cut-off top like an eighties gay porn pin-up), and Chris may or may not be a were too (haven't decided) but who definitely has an instant, massive crush on John.


	13. John Wick crossover: Derek/Stiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek’s a New York-based assassin working out on the West Coast. Stiles is an obnoxious hotel clerk.
> 
> The Continental Hotel is lifted from _John Wick_. You don’t need to have seen that movie, but you do need to know that the Continental caters exclusively to assassins and hitmen, that said types of people use a special type of currency (archaic-looking gold coins) to pay each other, and that the hotel is a neutral zone where no kills can happen, which is a rule it enforces with extreme prejudice.

The Continental Hotel’s New York City outpost is elegant but discreetly nondescript. Classic turn-of-the-century stonework on the outside, rich but muted interior with unusually clean sightlines. But that’s not something most people notice, and to the majority of the world, it’s just another old-fashioned relic blending in with the rest of its block, one of a hundred in the city. If you walked by it every thirty years, you’d be hard-pressed to take note of anything besides the street number. The hotel offers quiet, thorough service. No frills, but on the other hand, it’ll have everything a professional might ever need before they need it. And again, emphasis on the _quiet_ —nothing ever goes in and out except for the guests. Not even the laundry.

The Continental Hotel’s California outpost is sharp and postmodern, with odd angles and the occasional floor overshooting the rest of the building to add a decorative element. When you’re telling the driver where to go, you’ll usually get farther jogging their memory if you reference the architecture, instead of waiting for them to punch in the street address for GPS instructions. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—you work with your environment, not against it, and what passes in New York would be a giant screaming flag to the authorities on the West Coast. Here in California, people _notice_ if something hasn’t been renovated every five years. So it’s honestly not the hotel that Derek has issues with.

It’s the clerk.

Wherever you are in the world, the Continental will offer prompt, knowledgeable, _experienced_ service. That’s the deal. You don’t take the gold coin if you don’t know what you’re doing, and Derek knows what _he’s_ doing enough to not assume things just on appearance. So this kid, who looks like he might get carded just for trying to get into an R-rated movie, bopping his head to fist-pumping self-affirming pop music and chewing on a Minecraft novelty pen as he types in Derek’s info, he knows what he’s doing. The doorman was in uniform—granted, some kind of steampunked outfit that looks like the coattails have steel-reinforced tips—but the kid isn’t. He’s wearing a rumpled flannel shirt over a sloppily-printed t-shirt advertising some comic-book giveaway, but he’s the only person working night-shift reception on a Friday night, peak hours for certain professions, so he has to know what he’s doing.

“All right, Mr. Hale, I’ve got you up,” the kid says around the pen-cap. “One suite, two-night stay, prefers curtains drawn and a preset alarm clock to the traditional wake-up call—”

Derek instinctively grimaces and glances around. Then he puts both hands on the counter, making sure that the guns hidden in his sleeves clink, and stares pointedly at the kid. “And we’re just going to announce my preferences to the whole lobby?”

“Hey, hey, no, of course not, I’m _very_ familiar with the way you all like things handled,” the kid says, dropping his voice and hunching his shoulders. Somehow it doesn’t come off as very sincere, and then he flicks up his eyes and gives Derek an outright contemptuous snort. “Even though we’re platinum-certified as a no remote-monitoring zone, and the parking staff are fully trained in the art of staggering check-ins out to let your paranoia breathe and all, _and_ don’t shoot the concierge, okay, I was just warming up to ask what you’d like for your alarm clock.”

It takes a second for Derek to parse through all of that. In his defense, he just got off a red-eye cross-continental, and he hasn’t been back to this part of California in six years. “My clock?”

“Yeah, we have a menu,” the kid says, sliding an expensive-looking leather-bound portfolio across the counter. He catches Derek’s eye and, while still holding it, flips open the portfolio to show a page of the kind of thick, heavy-feeling paper usually used for wedding invitations. “Never let it be said that we don’t try to go the extra mile to make our hotel your home base away from home base, and again, _don’t_ shoot me, I’m contractually required to work that into conversation.”

“You’re required,” Derek says.

The kid gives him an unimpressed look back, then nudges the portfolio so Derek’s eye drops to it. “Yep. So you’ll notice it’s broken down into clocks, radio clocks, and nontraditional. We can swap in the first two categories before you get up to your room, but the nontraditional may take five to fifteen minutes to send up.”

“Look, I’ll just have whatever’s already in the—” Derek stops, because he can’t quite believe he read that right. He looks down and properly reads the line, and then jerks the portfolio towards him. “‘Have a hungry cat/dog wake you’? Are you kidding?”

“Nope. Just to be clear, they’re all well-treated in between gigs and we are a cruelty-free establishment,” the kid says. He’s not even looking at Derek as he answers, and instead is tapping away at his keyboard. “But their feedings are precisely timed so that they will expect to be fed when you need to wake up. Not that you need to actually feed them, we can do that for you too, but I should remind you that the standard Continental policy for mistreating employees also covers any animals we provide in any capacity. Including all penalties.”

Derek rereads the menu, then looks up at the kid. Who is still ignoring him, and looking extremely bored about it. He looks at the menu again and then notices some of the labels on the tabs for the other sections. The portfolio is a lot thicker than the one in the New York branch, and…Derek needs to get to his room, shower, and sleep. He’s getting distracted and he’s been in goddamn California for all of two hours.

He shuts the portfolio. “I’m fine, I’ve got a phone with alarms on it.”

“Well, okay, then,” the kid says, glancing up. He reaches out and takes back the portfolio with a faint but undeniable air of negative judgment. “So you’ve been at our other locations, so I assume you know all the service numbers—”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

The kid sighs loudly. The pen drops out of his mouth as a result and he briefly executes a panicked, bug-eyed, full-of-flail juggle before catching it off a bounce against the counter edge. And then he shoots Derek a dirty look, even though Derek hasn’t snorted or laughed or done anything except wrestle with the tiny, usually-wrong, but in this case rapidly-growing part of his brain that’s wondering whether he walked into the wrong hotel. Because this kid…is supposed to know what he’s doing. _Supposed_ to.

“All right, you’re all set. Here is your key, and when you get up to your room, the wifi password is in the bathroom,” the kid says, passing across a small plastic keyfob. “Per advance instruction, your meal will be delivered at four and I’ve also scheduled your visit with our on-site gunsmith at the same time to minimize—”

“Wait, wait, what?” Derek says. “I didn’t order that.”

“No, but trust me, you need it,” the kid says, leveling that unimpressed look at Derek again. Then he goes back to his typing.

A second later, he sighs so heavily that his eyes roll with it and looks at Derek. “Look, I’m so sorry I’m interrupting your very important game of solitaire,” Derek says. “But I think I’d like to speak to your—”

“You realize even though those look awesome as hell, their firing pins wiggle like Jello on an agitator plate _and_ you just jarred them on purpose,” the kid says, with a chin-jerk at Derek’s wrists. “Also, from the sound of it, you’re loading the wrong size ammunition, which, what the _hell_ , pro, and don’t even give me any bullshit about custom jobs and whatever, if you’re doing custom then you can damn well get the casings sized to fit whatever crazy filling you’ve got and you need the gunsmith before you just go and blow a hole in _our_ custom, remote-controlled, temp- and firmness- and gradient-variable mattresses. And it’s not solitaire, you asshole, it’s a DDoS attack botnet dry run.”

Derek is tired. Derek is jet-lagged. Derek has to get up in four hours and thirty-five minutes to meet his uncle and then kill a bunch of people, and _then_ fly back across the U.S. and help his sister get married.

“Fine, I’ll just tell him I don’t need him when he shows up,” Derek mutters, yanking the keyfob off the counter. “I don’t want to be disturbed by anybody else, all right?”

“Yeah, yeah, I got that. Have a happy stay, Mr. Hale,” the kid says, sounding about as thrilled about the odds of that as Derek feels. “You need anything, ask for Stiles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is stuck at ficlet stage because I can't string together a plot outside of the jokes, and a joke premise is a fun starting point, but all good comedies have some kind of sincere emotion at the heart of them. Bad ones just assume all you need is a bunch of one-liners and sarcastic people. Speaking of, the eventual punchline is Derek doesn't like people knocking or calling him to wake him, because then he grabs his gun and shoots.
> 
> Anyway, this would be primarily Derek/Stiles (something else I can't decide on is how and to what extent Peter gets thrown in there), with Derek periodically returning to the hotel in worse and worse shape while Stiles criticizes his assassinating choices/technique, until finally Derek brings back trouble with him. Which is against hotel rules so Stiles handles it, and also mentions that the hotel is hiring 'cause he got promoted to manager, and hey, Derek _might_ appreciate a more stable line of work with full benefits and on-the-job training. And there's maybe corollary of Stiles' dad flirting with jaded merc Chris Argent who keeps taking his meals in the hotel bar both because he's crushing and because his existence is that lonely.


	14. Multi-were Stiles, Scott, Peter and Derek

“It’s a curse,” Scott says.

“Well, I don’t know that I’d go that far,” Stiles says. “I mean, okay, the insect days were pretty rough and Marvel has _no_ idea what it’s like to actually be an ant-man, I mean, _compound eye-induced migraines_. But having bat radar is the bomb for scoping out incoming, and let’s be real here, you were digging the crazy honey badger charge too.”

Scott looks at him for a few seconds, one hand half-lifted, all ready to apologize profusely for accidentally being insensitive. Then he catches himself and shakes his head and then holds out that big book for Stiles to see. “No, I mean, you being a were isn’t a curse, but you turning into a _different_ were every day, that’s a curse. Because eventually, according to this, you’re going to lose your humanity, but you won’t have any kind of animal to replace it, so you’ll, well, go insane. And also lose control of your shape so you just kind of go blobby. There’s a photo.”

So Stiles has learned to take any supernatural knowledge source with a grain of salt and a big chaser of skepticism, because while the supernatural runs the gamut from creepy awesome to gross deadly, it isn’t any more free of the bias and propaganda and sheer shitty logic than the natural world is—or the study of it, anyway. You’d think that people who care enough about something to write it down would also care to get it straight, but no.

That said, the book Scott passes to him is unusually modern, from its laser-printed pages down to the careful annotations of dates, times, locations, and enough biographical details that Stiles and his trusty mobile phone browser can confirm at least one case was written up in a mainstream psychological case studies journal. So the photo, which is disturbingly high-quality, is probably not faked. Which, crap.

“Okay,” Stiles finally says. “So I’m cursed with the ultimate identity crisis. I contain multitudes but can’t conform to save my life. Which is so very not punk, even though it should be.”

“Um,” Scott says, fiddling with the book, and then he decides he can safely ignore that and just move on to the really critical info. “But look, there is a cure. See, it says that if you can find somebody who innately recognizes you no matter what form you take, you break the curse.”

“But that’s way too easy,” Stiles says, only half-hearing him. “I mean, it’s an ancient curse, you know those are never do these three easy steps—”

Scott winces. “Well, actually, you told me, remember? I asked Deaton about it and he says that when they say ‘innately,’ that means—”

Stiles makes a face. “Right, okay, so what they really mean is instant recognition and what the hell kind of _Taliesin_ curse is this? Are you sure we aren’t getting mythologies mixed up again? ‘cause I’m pretty sure this is more in line with Proteus and never mind, let’s concentrate on me not turning into a blob of fat with a cardiovascular system. So how we gonna find somebody who—”

There’s a loud bang as somebody forces up Stiles’ window. There is also another loud bang as somebody trips the boobytrap outside of Stiles’ door, because you can post all the Do-Not-Disturb signs in the world and werewolves just never think those things apply to them, despite the _distinct_ lack of footnoted exceptions on said signs.

Anyway, Stiles startles and suddenly he’s a small…he’s got wings and feathers. Also, claws. And a snaky tail. And _holy shit he is a dinosaur this is so cool he’s an actual DINOSAUR_ and right. Um. He tucks in his wings and stifles that embarrassed _aulp_ noise and does his best to look stately and majestic as he…looks at Derek and Peter’s knees.

“Are you two still dicking around?” Derek demands. “I thought you said you were researching that stuff the guy left behind. Can I or can’t I throw that out? It’s making my whole apartment smell.”

Scott blinks, then jabs his finger at snarly ol’ Derek because to his credit, when a loved one is in danger, he has zero concern for his own personal safety. “Wait a second. So you think this is—”

“Well, obviously it’s Stiles,” Peter says, squatting down to peer at Stiles with great interest and a shady attempt to sneak his hand behind Stiles for a trap-and-scoop. When Stiles awks and snaps his teeth and jumps back, Peter smirks and flicks out his own claws. “Who else would have that look on his face?”

“Look?” Scott says.

“That one where he thinks it’s great how he’s about to wreck your life,” Derek says. “I don’t even know how an insect has an expression, but I _know_ that was you crawling all over my last Cheeto yesterday, Stilinski.”

Scott looks between Derek and Peter, blinks, shrugs, and retrieves the book from where Stiles had dropped it. He flips a few pages, then stabs his finger down. “Okay. So we _were_ researching all the black magic stuff that sorcerer left, and can you two free up your schedule for the next two and a half hours? Also, um, would you mind a lot if we maybe kind of did this bonding ceremony that doesn’t actually mean anything, it’s not recognized by the law or anything and—”

Being a dinosaur is cool, but. Bonding. Stiles goes human and snatches the book from Scott. “Wait, _what_? Scott, seriously, lead with the _lifetime sentence of dealing with homicidal psycho uber-intrusive werewolves for the rest of my life_ bit. Would you?”

“I’m not _uber_ -intrusive,” Peter complains. “I did actually knock at your door first, but your father seems to be under the impression that he shouldn’t let me in.”

“Because you’re a homicidal psycho werewolf,” Stiles says, looking up. “You going to argue that one?”

Peter pauses, tilts his head, and then sighs. “No, I suppose not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have this half-baked idea of Stiles running through the alphabet, doing a different were type every day, mostly because I have watched _so_ many nature documentaries and have been wanting to do were-badger!Stiles for forever. But again, lacking a full-fledged plot to hang the emotional bits on.
> 
> Derek and Peter end up being reluctant soulmates with Stiles here.


	15. Stiles/Peter, closest I'll ever get to mpreg

Two weeks into the worst bout of indigestion of Stiles’ life, Stiles’ father looks across the dining table, frowns, and stops Stiles from reaching for another pancake. “Son, are you all right? he asks. “You look a little—not to be rude, but you look a little—”

“Yeah, I know, too many late-night research sessions, but Scotty’s got it covered, we’re going for a run through the preserve later,” Stiles says, keeping his outreached hand out while maneuvering with his other to get at his real target: the sausages. “Don’t worry, nobody in this family’s going to be upping their cardiac-arrest risk factors. Well. More than they already are, Mister _yolks_ only.”

Stiles’ father assumes a defensive crouch over his so-called omelet. “Even I know the FDA’s flip-flopped on that one, kid. Just…all right, I guess that should be fine. Just take care of yourself.”

“Sure,” Stiles says around a breakfast sausage, grease dripping down his chin, and he figures that’s that.

Of course, then he goes up to open his bedroom window for his best friend and whichever werewolf’s playing beta this time to Scott’s true alpha, and instead he drops an egg. So no, it’s not indigestion.

“Oh, shit,” Stiles says, looking at the egg.

“Don’t you gotta keep it warm?” is Scott’s immediate worried-nurturer reaction, as he uses his werewolf reflexes to whip the quilt off Stiles’ bed and sling it tightly around the big, slightly sticky, warm ovoid WTF in the room. He fusses with the sheets a bit, humming under his breath, and then looks up at Stiles. Blinks a few times and then his expression shifts to a different kind of concern. “Stiles? Hey, Stiles, are you…do you…do you maybe want to put your pants back on and talk about it?”

Just then, there’s a little _thippit_ from the window, and Stiles looks up just in time to catch the blinds swaying gently in the wake of an exiting werewolf, who, since it was Erica, virtually guarantees that the news will be all over town within the hour. Unless he—and then he gets all of one step towards the illegal but highly amateur-proof intelligent-sniper-scoped tranq rifle he has, when he hears a small, barely audible noise. Barely a tap. From the egg.

Stiles sighs and sits down next to Scott. Weirdly, he doesn’t feel particularly achy or, well, _gutted_ , considering the size of the thing that just came out of him. Mostly he feels…sort of lazy and cranky, like he doesn’t _really_ see the need to leave this room anytime soon. That and hungry. If his insides have bounced back that quickly, clearly he’s got room for more sausages, and that saves his dad from the difficult decision of managing his cholesterol levels properly.

“Sure,” Stiles says. He wraps his arm around his egg and rubs his free hand over his face. “Just where to start…kind of a long one, fair warning. You wouldn’t mind going downstairs and getting us snacks and drinks first, would you?”

* * *

“And don’t give me any bullshit about proof of superiority or survival of the fittest, or any of that faux-Darwinist crap!” Stiles shouts down, threatening Peter with another of the calcium pellets his dad’s guilted him into taking. “Just because your goddamn alpha sperm ninja’d its fucking way through double-bagged condoms doesn’t mean that it’s an evolutionary advantage! It just means that we have subpar sex ed and I need to get three _Wikipedia_ articles edit-locked ASAP!”

“Stiles—” Peter starts, looking oddly not-smug.

“And don’t even think about bringing your carnivore drama up here! I don’t care what heads you’re cracking to rebuild the family rep or whatever, this is an omelet-free zone for the next month!” Stiles finishes, slamming down the window.

* * *

The egg lets out a muffled chirp and Stiles absently checks the temperature gauge on his phone. It’s still in safe range but rising a bit, probably because they’re standing in a hermetically-sealed tent with its own heating system, so he dials back on the heating pads in the carry-case and then moves the case so that it’s near the zip-door and can be moved to the cooler outer room if necessary.

“He’s going to look gross for a couple more minutes but he’s not going to die,” Cora helpfully announces, as she holds the bucket for Melissa to swap out the filthy soaked pads from under Peter. “All that stuff coming out means he’s purging all the poison.”

“Somebody told him we’re actually aware of the threat of egg-gobbling reptilians, seeing as we’ve been dealing with it for millions of years, right?” Stiles says. “And that egg-stealing is by default first-degree murder and the burden to prove an exception’s on the accused? And generally, that that’s why my dad taught me firearms safety even before you guys started mixing it up around here?”

“He said we shouldn’t bother you, you’d just get angry,” Derek says, with the kind of side-long disapproving look that Stiles thought the two of them had gotten over, oh, say, the fiftieth time Scott and he had vetted Derek’s date for him and come up with homicide. “I think he was waiting till he could show you all that stuff, and then he was going to tell you. You know, when you were distracted and wouldn’t just throw stuff at his head.”

Stiles looks over and through the transparent wall of the tent. “Yeah, about that, what the hell has he been reading? Does he think we’re chickens? I don’t _perch_ , and when they come out of the egg, they’re human-baby-shaped, they don’t need that either. Isn’t he usually better about research?”

Cora and Derek both shrug while making it look like the prelude to a beat-down. “He said you checked out all the good books,” Cora says.

“I think he just figured he’d buy everything first and sort out what really worked afterward. Since we didn’t have a lot of time in between that and killing the monster snake out there,” Derek says. He reaches up to scratch his neck and somehow this also means he has to crack the bones there, his go-to intimidation tactic. “We had to shop for that and weapons at the same time.”

“I think he’s waking up,” Melissa suddenly says.

Constant bickering and occasional murder attempts aside, the Hales still take offense when outsiders try and tip the balance for them, so Stiles is positive Derek steps across him on purpose. He slides back and lets Derek and Cora hurry up to Peter’s bedside, then picks up the carry-case. Looks at the egg inside, little soft whistle-y sounds coming from the snoozing embryo, and then he hikes it up in his arms and comes over just as Peter’s eyes crack open.

“This is your sperm donor, kid,” Stiles says, holding the case up so Peter can look into it. “He has this obsession with proving that he’s better than everybody, even though he is statistically the most likely person in his family to escalate the situation, and also, would literally impale himself on snake fangs rather than apologize for fucking up his math. So when in doubt, you are _always_ using my calendar app, okay? But…okay, I take back the carnivore hysteria and he might actually be decent at this parenting thing, once he _listens_ to me.”

Peter’s hand twitches. Sort of towards Stiles. It could just be involuntary, given he’s still shivering in pain, but then again, he’s smiling and he’s got hold of himself enough to not have his fangs drop for it. “Worth it,” he mutters.

Stiles just resists the urge to beat his head against the carry-case. “Just to be on the safe side, we’re switching it up till I get out of college,” he says, glaring at Peter. “If _anybody_ ’s making that decision a second time, it’d better be me.”

* * *

“Male werewolves can’t get pregnant,” Stiles mutters, frantically flipping through the book. Then he tosses it aside and drags up the next box of references. “I looked this up. I read the studies! I read the surveys of the studies!”

“Mmmm, yes, suppose those are all wrong.” Peter seems much less grumpy about this than…actually, he doesn’t look grumpy at all. He just looks his usual self-satisfied, maybe with some extra laziness, as he curls up around their egg. It rocks slightly—it’s a couple days away from hatching—and he rumbles at it, then gives it a sleepy nuzzle as he hikes the blankets up over them. “Who would’ve guessed?”

Stiles puts down his current book. A second later, Peter sighs and twists his head around.

“I really didn’t,” he says, eyes wide with sincerity. “Believe me, I’m just as surprised as you are. But when you think about it, Stiles, it might not be a terrible thing. After all, at least they’ll be able to play together and God knows the family history’s shown the problems with spacing out your children too much.”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, slowly lifting the book again. “Sure. Of course. And this has nothing to do with the fact that the only thing you like better than evildoing is being a helicopter parent with fangs and black magic.”

Peter snorts his way back under the blankets. “Well, then they should be nicer to our children. Not my fault if they pick that hill to die a slow, drawn-out death on.”

“I don’t know _why_ I find this so attractive,” Stiles says after a moment of staring at his dozing lump of a partner. “And yet. God. We’re gonna end up with a whole flock, aren’t we?”

“Come to think of it, it’s been two generations, but twins aren’t unknown in the family,” Peter murmurs. Then he flaps up the blanket, smirking, and waves for Stiles to come over and join him and the egg. “Oh, just enjoy it, Stiles. I _promise_ there will be no druids without your approval, and we can always make Derek babysit.”

“Not Laura or Cora?” Stiles says. Coming over. Just…he should check on the egg. Yeah. That’s all.

“Well, if you have the blackmail on them, I don’t see why not. I’ve just run out,” Peter says. As soon as Stiles is near enough, he tucks his head onto Stiles’ lap and promptly goes back to dozing. 

“I have to do _everything_ around here,” Stiles sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I generally do not like mpreg. I'm not fond of how it's usually a vehicle to completely one-eighty characterization, as if plot devices alone are the key to building up a plausible characterization shift, and I'm also not fond of the way that it usually turns the pregnant character not only into somebody who's totally unrecognizable, but also into somebody who resembles no actual pregnant woman I have ever met, or for that matter, worked with (and I have worked with women who were at their jobs pretty much till they had to go to the hospital, and aside from the belly, they weren't any different, and then they were bad-assing complicated work issues via email from the hospital, while in labor).
> 
> So this one is almost certainly not getting written out, since it's driven almost entirely by my desire to invert all the usual mpreg tropes and not by much of an interest in the actual story itself. I'm actually trying to work on some more Cthulhu Mythos fusion stuff at the moment.
> 
> ETA: Please note I'm not trying to say women should have to be crazy-dedicated to work during pregnancy. I'm saying I've seen them be, and it's a lot more common than pregnancy stereotypes make out, and generally, pregnancy is not any better of a reason for a personality transplant than most other major life events. So if an mpreg fic is going to show a drastic change in a character, then for me, that change has to be organic to that character to be plausible. You can't just have them turn into the universal stock pregnant lady trope for me to believe it.


	16. Game of Thrones-ish AU

“It’s Scott,” Peter hisses into Stiles’ ear. “Scott, Scott, it’s only—”

Still bedraggled with sleep, Stiles keeps hold of the dagger, but pulls his hand away from the crossbow. It’s gotten humid in the room, between the steam escaping from the heated hollow in the bed platform and the melting snow dripping through the windows, and the furs stick and cling to him as he struggles free. Then a portion of them pull away, going with Peter as the other man rolls to the side to clear the way for him.

“Stiles, the fires are lit,” Scott calls through the door.

Something or someone in the room hisses, but when Stiles looks over, Peter’s as still and silent as one of the ice gargoyles the day-watch has taken to carving for fun. The man does meet his eyes and the corners of Peter’s mouth tilt slightly upwards, but it’s a cold, distracted smile that Peter gives him. One of the braziers scattered about the room crackles suddenly, a coal popping against its brass, and the light temporarily leaps to a livid egg-yolk yellow. In its cast the backs of Peter’s eyes glow pale blue, like the great shimmering lights of the winter night sky.

Scott knocks again. Stiles throws off a last fur and lifts his dagger-hand. He glances it over for chips or changes to the runes scrolled down its blade, as he always does, and then slides it back into its place under the pillow. Peter’s eyes have marked the dagger the whole way, and when Stiles half-turns, almost but not completely putting the man out of view, Peter’s shoulders slacken the faintest touch.

“I heard,” Stiles calls back. Then grimaces as he pulls himself to the side of the bed and then steps off to cross to the massive wardrobe standing against the wall. Steam heat is close heat, and doesn’t carry, but the moisture it brings does, and that slicks clammily against his skin as soon as he’s breached the chilly air of the room. “Which side of the mountains?”

“This side,” comes Scott’s prompt reply. He’s breathing hard enough to be heard through the door. “This side. Isaac and Boyd are already at the main gate, and Allison’s rousing the archers. Stiles, I haven’t lighted our beacon yet—”

“Because I didn’t tell you to,” Stiles snaps. He twists around and looks at the door. He can’t see through it but he can picture his oldest and best friend standing on the other side of it, unhappy, reluctant expression and half-raised fist tilting towards and then pulling away from the door. “Did you wake Lydia yet?”

“She’s already awake,” Scott says. “She says she’ll meet you on the ramparts.”

Peter laughs softly. When Stiles looks over, he pauses where he is, half-crouched at the end of the bed. He’s naked from the waist up save for a wide leather collar, clasped with elaborate silver workings at the buckle and where the collar grips the gorge of his throat, and as he turns and pulls the furs from his legs, revealing their bareness, the shadows slither and lick over his pale skin like serpent tongues tasting at their tautly lean planes.

“Don’t let me delay you,” Peter says, even as he pads across the stone floor and joins Stiles at the wardrobe. When he opens the doors, he lifts his arms high and grips them at head-height, ignoring the handles down below.

Even with werewolf strength, the effort bows his body. A shadowed whisk of movement catches Stiles’ eye, pulling it down to where Peter’s cock is swinging, limp but heavy with as much promise as a ripe fruit. Stiles snorts, watching Peter swivel so that his hip grazes at Stiles, and then, just as the other man takes down a padded undershirt and a leather jerkin, he snaps out and seizes Peter’s wrist.

“That one,” Stiles says.

Peter’s brows rise in confusion over eyes that are completely devoid of any ignorance or inattention. Then he smiles, dipping his head in a show of apology, and releases the jerkin. It slips out of its folds and Stiles takes it up, shaking it out and flopping it so that the unrepaired break in the protective runes stitched along the collar is visible.

By the time he’s refolded it and put it back, Peter has retrieved trousers and footwraps, which Stiles does accept from the man. Then Peter retreats to the bed. At first he simply sprawls and watches Stiles dress, but as Stiles crosses and recrosses the room, collecting boots, sword, spyglass, Peter sighs and pushes himself up to kneel at the edge of the platform.

“You do know it’s just a feint to lure you into overextending your men,” Peter says, holding out his hands.

Stiles looks at him. Peter tips his head, assuming an air of wounded but willing helpfulness, and when Stiles snorts and comes over to him, he puts his palms flat against Stiles’ belly and lets out a long, soft, pleased sound. His hands are still for a second, as he looks up at Stiles, and then they hurry into deft motion, lacing and tucking and smoothing.

“No, of course I trust that the Alphas will actually send the men I was promised,” Stiles says dryly. “How lucky I am that you’re here to point that out to me.”

“Now, Stiles, there’s no reason to be rude, just because the House of Eichen’s chosen the coldest, longest night of the year to cross the pass,” Peter says, as his clever fingers straighten a strap across Stiles’ shoulder. Then, before Stiles can step away, his hands close down on both of Stiles’ shoulders.

Of course Stiles immediately has Peter gripped by the back of the neck, pressing down so that the hard silver edges of the collar bite into Peter’s skin. Peter hisses a little, but then drops his eyelids to half-mast and lifts his chin, outright swaying into the grip.

“What, am I not allowed a last favor of my master?” Peter says, voice coy and challenging in equal measures. “After all, these may be the final minutes of my term of service.”

“Sure of that, are you?” Stiles says, though he loosens his grip. Peter’s hands slide from his shoulders to his chest and one fingertip slips past the leather and cotton to somehow winkle a graze against his collarbone. He shifts sharply, then pushes back the urge to grimace and instead doubles down, bringing his other hand around to close firmly over Peter’s buttock.

“Oh, don’t be—” Peter’s lashes flutter and his voice grows breathy and low, shivering with the shudder that passes through his body, sends it rubbing up against Stiles “—ridiculous, if I wished it over with here, when I’d still be—”

“Stuck in the coldest, highest, most isolated fort on the whole range, with the most valuable pass at your disposal, plus terrible food when there _is_ food, a new hundred-year monster coming out every week, and no company but a bunch of exiled nobles learning for the first time to live without their servants,” Stiles says. He feels that fingertip worm into his collar again and leans over till he’s breathing in the same air Peter breathes out a second earlier. “Also, the regular attacks by an entire country of necromancers. I guess you _could_ pick your moment better.”

Peter laughs along with the jibe, but then rises sharply. And when Stiles tightens his grip, Peter drops into it to show that was what he wanted all along, to be pulled up close and hard so he can lick his words right to Stiles’ mouth. “I could, I can, and I _do_. So don’t let that hero of a best friend of yours drag you out so far you can’t find your way back, Stiles. Your dear wife and I will hold open the gates, but that’s no use if you’ve a whole mountain between you and that.”

“I’ll try,” Stiles says after a moment. That prompts a snarl from Peter, who’s finally tired of the jousting and is letting his nerves show. He snarls again as Stiles laughs, then slides his hand from Peter’s collar up into his thick mess of curls, twisting them up for a grip strong enough to haul Peter’s head back. “All right, all right, I’ll be back. Don’t worry so much, wolf, I told you then and I keep telling you. I’m not about to die for any king’s cause.”

Then he makes to pull away, but Peter stops him. Hands rising up to cup Stiles’ jaw, not tight, but there so Stiles’ chin bumps them as he turns. Stiles stops, then looks back and Peter seizes him then, presses a mouth so wicked with heat to his lips that for a moment Stiles doesn’t feel the cold.

His own hand runs onto smooth skin and he realizes he’s lost his hold on Peter’s hair. Peter’s still kissing him, long and deep, that clever tongue working to tease all the vulnerable places in his mouth, fingers moving back and forth along his jawline, brushing up more heat under the skin there. Stiles should go, but he lingers another moment, clasping his hand where it comes to a natural rest, following the curve of Peter’s throat as it flares out from under the collar into the sloping shoulder. His thumb rubs up against a shallow bony mound, and then he circles it along the ridges of Peter’s spine so the man moans into his mouth, moans and pulls at him almost so Stiles thinks Peter will miss him, when he’s gone.

“Try not to upset Lydia too much,” Stiles says, reluctantly untangling himself. Sometimes he thinks he might miss Peter, for all that he never can quite take his eye off the man. But there’s little reason to look away, he thinks, watching the glint of long-simmering anger flash up behind the charming smile. “I think _you_ know we can’t afford to waste supplies, not when the attacks are coming this quickly.”

Peter covers up his genuine concern with a sulky, pettish slump back to the bed. “Very well, master. Heard and acknowledged.”

“Oh, don’t be so sour,” Stiles says, laughing, as he finally takes his leave. “You’ll get your release soon enough, you know that. Should be any day now.”

* * *

After their family’s banishment, Stiles travelled to many different places in search of ways to clear his father’s name. He studied many different disciplines, with everyone and anyone he thought might provide something he could use. High wizards in their aerie-like libraries, alchemists moving amid stained, cramped laboratories, unscrupulous street mages working alongside cutthroats and whores. He learned a good deal.

Something he didn’t learn from them, but from the cabal that had turned his father out along with so many other honest, innocent officials, was that learning is all well and good but for real results, it’s best paired with an instinct for blood. So that is how he found his way to the Wild Forest, with its stories of hulking giants who have leaves growing out of their hair and who can wither crops with a mere touch, of enormous bears and elks whose life-or-death struggle carves out valleys.

Of werewolves. If you anger them, they will seek you out night and day, a relentless shadow at your heels, until the matter has been settled by blood, and only by blood. A dedication to admire, but from a distance—werewolves are proud, independent folk, or so says the lore. They’re savage to each other, and even more so to outsiders, and will brook no will but their own. 

But to Stiles, a few more seeking out his death hardly matters. So he goes alone into the Wild Forest. He comes across killing ground after killing ground, until night falls and he has to make camp.

In the darkest part of that night, when his fire is guttering to glowing cinders, a wolf slinks into his camp and tries to kill him.

It’s a male, big and muscled, but bloodied all along one side and limping, one hindleg fitfully tucking up against its belly. Half of its face looks as if it’s been pushed into a hot fire, the fur scorched away, the flesh gnarled with scars, though even as Stiles watches, the skin is smoothing out, little by little. Stiles and the wolf circle the dying fire, till the wolf’s on the same side as Stiles’ abandoned bedroll and Stiles is across, and then the wolf sits down as if all it wishes is a little rest.

When Stiles pretends to nod off, the wolf lunges again for him. He takes the wolf down before it can, smashes it against the ground and then pinions it there with bespelled ropes anchored to iron stakes. The wolf snarls at him till the froth coming out of its mouth wets all the ground around its head, wets the fur down its breast so dark that it almost looks blood-mattered, but Stiles notices that never once does the wolf howl.

He keeps the wolf tied down for three days. On the first day, he tends to its wounds, strapping a belt round its muzzle to keep away its teeth. When he’s done, he removes the belt and puts food and water where it can reach, and retreats to read aloud from a book of evocations. The wolf listens, but any time that Stiles dangles an opportunity before it, it tries to bite him. When he beds down that night, it’s to the sound of it futilely gnawing at the ropes.

On the second day, Stiles gives the wolf water but no food. When he eats himself, he does so sitting by the wolf’s head, just beyond reach, and he discusses his family history. How they’d faithfully stood guard over one of the king’s minor country estates for generations, all the way down to his father. How Stiles would have done the same, if he hadn’t gotten mixed up with a series of dares at a festival that had ended with another nobleman’s son dead, and him accused of the murder. How his father had been temporarily suspended from his post because of it—how that had gotten them out of the way during the coup, but how afterward, his father had refused to swear to the usurpers, and so they’d been thrown in with the loyalists anyway.

“It doesn’t make much sense, if you know me,” Stiles tells the wolf. “Well, maybe if you’d known me before, but if you know me now—you know there’s just one oath I care about. Oh, I’ll say the words, but I don’t take their meaning. I’ll take all the fallout, too. I know I’m an oathbreaker, and I know what that brings, and I don’t care.”

The wolf grunts and shifts under its ropes, keen eyes tracking Stiles’ hands as he puts aside his bowl, still with food in it, and then comes forward with a piece of jerky in his hand. It’s quiet as he kneels by it, still but for the eye rolling up to watch him. When he puts his fingers on its head, its tail suddenly fillips up, as eager as any dog begging at a wayside tavern.

And then it twists its head and one foreleg loose from ropes it’s been working at all night, and Stiles lets its teeth come within a hair of closing on his shin before he swivels around. Pins the wolf again, sticks the jerky in his own mouth, and then whistles to himself, in between chews, as he tightens the ropes again.

On the third day, Stiles gives the wolf half as much water as before, enough to keep the wolf healing but not enough to keep thirst at bay. The wolf growls and bares its teeth at him till it sees Stiles begin to pack up camp, and then it grows frantic, writhing under the ropes and making noises that almost seem like words. Whining, desperate noises, shading to frenzied barking as Stiles slings his bags onto his back and walks away at a slow, deliberate pace.

He goes just far enough to be sure the wolf has lost him, and then he turns around and comes back. Just as he reaches the wolf again, so does another wolf. Thin and mangy, ribs prominently showing, lips so shriveled that its teeth are permanently bared.

Stiles catches the second wolf in the act of leaping—not at him, at the first wolf. He slits it from groin to throat with his sword, then twists away to let it fall. The body comes down bare inches from the first wolf’s nose, and the arcing blood reaches as far as the wolf’s tail. Mere drops that far—at the wolf’s muzzle it is so thick that the wolf has to lick its nose clean to breathe.

The wolf watches him as Stiles sets aside the sword and comes over to squat at its head. Stiles dips one hand in the pooling blood and then turns it so his cupped palm is right under the wolf’s muzzle.

A sharp blink, and then the wolf lifts its head a little. It stares at Stiles, lowers itself till the end of its muzzle almost touches the small puddle of blood cradled in Stiles’ hand, and then draws back its lips in a silent snarl.

Stiles laughs. Then grabs the wolf by the lower jaw, yanking till the wolf is straining against the ropes. “No, you’re leaving with me. Three days. You’re leaving with me and you know it,” he says. “So _change_.”

The wolf peels its lips even further back, till it seems that it might skin its own face out of sheer rage. But it’s thinking, Stiles can see that, and as time drags on, the lips quiver with the effort of holding back. Then, slowly, begin to relax.

There’s a wet, twisting popping noise. Then another, and then, twisting and jerking against the ropes, a deep groan coming from its chest, the wolf changes into a man.

Peter works out so well that Stiles goes back next year and gets himself another werewolf.

* * *

Scott’s still in the hall, though he’s moved several yards away and is discussing something with a sergeant-at-arms. When he sees Stiles, he breaks off the talk—doesn’t forget the sympathetic smile and clap to the shoulder that’s made him the popular one with their forces—and immediately takes a place alongside Stiles.

“We can’t see how many yet,” he mutters. “A fog is coming up from the valley, and the beacon fire up on the saddle went out while we were watching it. If there are any survivors—”

“There aren’t,” Stiles says as they walk towards the stairs up to the garrison walls. “You know that, that’s why we sent the two who stole extra rations and tried to beat up Isaac to cover it up. Honestly, we’re lucky they even thought to light the fire.”

For a second Scott is quiet, and then he sighs and rakes his hand through his hair. “Because they thought they could make up for it, and we’d forgive them,” he says.

“Well, still, lose ten to save two, and it’s the Worm Moon in a little over a week,” Stiles points out. Still, he slows his step for a second to bump their shoulders together. “I’ll handle Lydia, you and Allison better go—”

“She’s scaring the guards,” Scott says. He pauses as they reach the stairs, then goes up onto the first step with Stiles. “Listen, Allison’s already at it, I can come if she’s going to go after you for the avalanches again.”

Stiles laughs, then shakes his head. “Thanks, Scott, but you know the only person Lydia likes yelling at more than me is you. One of us has to get people down to the pass.”

Scott looks reluctant about it, but he nods and then retreats down the hall. Two people join him before he’s reached the end and all three of them pick up their pace. Then, just as they’re rounding the corner, the door to Stiles’ bedroom opens. Peter’s head pokes out, turned to watch Scott’s departure. Then he turns and smiles knowingly at Stiles.

Who waves off the man and then goes up the staircase, only to find Derek waiting for him just around the bend. Derek’s been outside the walls, from the bits of pine needles jammed into his clothing—he has on the heavy leather trousers and furred boots they all wear, but otherwise is lightly dressed in just a loosely-tucked shirt. The front is even open, showing a triangle of bare skin nearly to the waist. And his own collar, though he’s wrapped rags around the silver so their glinting won’t give him away.

He snorts impatiently as Stiles reaches over and pulls the rags away, and then sighs as Stiles pulls a splinter from the folds of his shirt. The wood is dense and dark, almost looking like wrought-iron—timber carried up, very distinct from the pale, open-grain woods native to the mountain. “I was tired of sitting in here and smelling that Eichen rot,” Derek says, which is far more of an explanation than he usually offers. “You can’t see their front lines yet, but up past the treeline you can smell them clear enough.”

“Which means you know how many and what type, and you also know why Lydia’s angry,” Stiles says, flicking the splinter at him.

It hits Derek’s shirt and falls to the ground between them. Derek doesn’t so much as glance at it, instead choosing to reach up and scratch off a little dried blood from his collar. He’s far more overtly resentful than Peter is, but strangely, he’s never cared much about disguising the collar. If anything, he wears it openly as a calculated challenge, and shows a vicious delight in beating anyone who takes it as a sign that he’ll bow his head to _them_.

“I didn’t touch her cairns or anything like that when I was up there. They’re on the wrong side of the mountain,” Derek says, shrugging dismissively.

“And still, here you are, putting me between you two,” Stiles says. As he talks, he puts his arm behind Derek’s back, pushing the man up as he threatens to lag a full step behind.

They’ve reached the top of the stairs and the sudden bluster of wind mostly carries away Derek’s irritable snort. He jerks forward, then twists so he’s facing away from the wind. “Do you want to know or not?” he demands.

Stiles didn’t bring one of the heavy cloaks with him because he assumed Lydia would want to lay into him as soon as she saw him, and would be waiting right at the staircase. But she’s not there, and the wind is so cold that the first slap of it seems to steal all the heat from his bones. He was never the typical nobleman and his father encouraged him to exercise outdoors, learn woodcraft from the gamekeepers, but he still can’t help a spasm against the chill.

Derek sees it. The man couldn’t miss it, standing as close as he is. Maybe it’s the wind that narrows Derek’s eyes, but it’s certainly not a breeze that turns Derek’s head to consider a blanket thrown over a small knapsack sitting next to the door, some guard’s temporary stash. Derek looks at it, then at Stiles, and then he steps silently out of the way, just as Lydia comes storming up.

“So not only are we going to keep this damned pass open for the benefit of a bunch of half-rotted corpses, we’re going to install you as the ice centerpiece for the lunar festivities?” she snaps, sweeping by him so sharply that he almost feels the slice of her cloak hem across his shins.

Stiles spares a second to cast his eyes down the ramparts, checking that the soldiers manning them have heads bent towards the pass, and then he follows Lydia. He is grateful to get out of the cold, he’ll admit, but not to the point of overdoing their act for the guard. “It’d be cheaper than trying to catch the usual shaggy trout,” he says.

She whirls again, her eyes wide and shading golden with anger, and then she really sees him. After a slight pause, Lydia pivots and goes towards the nearest room. She’s pulling her cloak off so Stiles pushes open the door, and then swivels himself so that she can reach past him to hand that to a scowling Derek.

“He says they’ve got far too many for just a skirmish,” Lydia says, without so much as a nod Derek’s way. “At least a full company, and if he hasn’t disturbed my alignments too badly, we should know how many sorcerers are servicing them within the hour. Unfortunately, he couldn’t speak to artillery—”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to smell that from a mile away,” Derek mutters, leaning against the closed door.

“—and the hour will still be too early for me to try anything,” Lydia goes on over him. They’re in the maproom, and she draws over a diagram of the pass and then stabs her finger against it. “I told you those avalanches were meant to broaden the shelf. They’re setting up for a siege, they have to be.”

The chill from outside is still numbing Stiles’ flesh and he doesn’t trust his fingers to be nimble, so he simply leans against her arm to nudge her finger a few inches over. “Well, in that case, it’d be even better if they brought two companies, and then we wouldn’t need to worry about the mop-up.”

Lydia jerks her head up to glare at him, but it’s a brittle look, without true rage to boil behind it. Then she looks at the map again. She takes a deep breath and her other hand edges up so that she’s pressing both of them against the table, leaning her weight into them.

“It did have to come,” she finally mutters.

“Did you want to spend two winters in this place?” Stiles asks her.

He moves around the table to stand by her side. She half-looks at him, her gaze not quite rising to his face, and then straightens up to show a tightly calm face. Her hand comes up and smooths at her hair, delicately working around the fragile pearl-tipped ornaments adorning it. Then it drops to the table again, so that the fingertips of two fingers from each of their hands overlap.

“You should remind Scott his wife’s not going to see her father again if we stay here,” Lydia says. She does look him in the eye then, firm and determined, and then she briskly rolls up the map from under their hands. After slotting it into its nook, she pushes past Stiles with skirts swinging hard enough to audibly slap against the jamb. “And remember that it’s a twenty-second propagation, not twenty-five. The moon’s—”

“Waxing, not waning, I know,” Stiles says.

Lydia’s skeptical snort echoes back down the hall towards them. Derek, who’d held the door for her, continues to hold the door as he looks after her. His expression is a mix of irritation and amusement, shifting to resignation as he finally looks at the cloak he’s still holding.

“Leave it in her room,” Stiles says, and when Derek glares at him, Stiles laughs and goes over to take it. “Fine, she’s my wife, I’ll do it.”

“It’s not her collar,” Derek says, following Stiles out of the room.

He waits in the hall as Stiles drops off the cloak. Or at least seems to, but when Stiles comes back out, Derek has obtained a sleeveless quilted-leather vest for himself, and cloaks for both of them. And strips of rawhide, which he’s wrapping around his sword-hilt.

“You’d probably have an easier life if it was hers,” Stiles says.

Derek snorts without looking up, and falls back alongside Stiles as they go down to the main hall, where Scott’s assembled the group going out to the pass. The doors are open and through them, Stiles can see Scott’s wife assigning cohorts of archers to different parts of the wall. That and Scott staring wistfully at her, just before recollecting himself and, with a smile and an obvious word of encouragement, pointing out to a soldier that his sword is belted on in reverse.

Stiles steps back into the hall, which for the moment is empty, and Derek trails him then too. Though now they’re facing each other, so to an outsider observer, it might look like a retreat on Stiles’ part, and an advance on Derek’s. Unless they noted Derek’s expression, which is a seething morass of reluctance and resentment and hungry anticipation.

“Peter’s the one who cares about the view,” Derek says. He breathes in sharply as Stiles raises a hand towards his throat, but holds himself in place. “He’s always liked looking down and watching. I can’t stand that, waiting to see if they’ll make it up to me or not.”

“So I’ve noticed, what with how this barely keeps you at home,” Stiles says dryly. He slips a fingertip under Derek’s collar and gives it a tug. Lets the cold blue glow of Derek’s eyes die down before he finally reaches back and unfastens it. “Speaking of, did you talk to him yet?”

Derek tilts his head back as the collar slides off of him, his eyes closing as if he likes the feel of it. He jerks his chin abruptly to the side, then repeats the movement in the other direction, low satisfied noises leaking out of him with each crack of his spine. And then he drops his head again, opens his eyes, looks at Stiles. The resentment is there—it never really goes away with Derek—but it’s mostly subsumed in another simmer, the kind of mounting heat that attracts rather than warns.

“No,” he says. He watches Stiles put the collar in a pouch tucked under Stiles’ shirt, right against the breast, and then tips his head forward.

Stiles catches him under the chin just before their mouths would have touched. Derek grins, showing the fangs hidden behind his lips, and then allows his teeth to go blunt. Then he goes with Stiles’ tug. It’s a hard kiss, rougher than Peter’s, but with its own kind of bruising charm. Derek only ever tries to kiss Stiles right after the collar’s come off, and when he does, he always tries to bite first. But that’s the end of it—in that he’s easier to handle than Peter.

“No, why?” he says as Stiles withdraws, moves his grip to Derek’s arm, pulls him into the hall. “We’re going off to kill now, he just makes me too angry for that.”

“Such a strange werewolf,” Stiles says, and then he looks at Derek. “Both, either.”

Derek doesn’t look back. Derek doesn’t try to shake Stiles off, but the second Stiles releases him, the man steps well out of reach. Still staying near Stiles, and just as well since none of the soldiers like to be near him.

“Gates are open,” Scott says, coming over to them. He doesn’t like fighting, but when he’s convinced himself it’s unavoidable, he drives into it as hard as he will anything else. One of his best traits, and right now, something that puts a breathlessness into his voice and makes the glitter in his eyes about as hard as they will ever be. “It’s time?”

Stiles nods, then slings his arm over the other man’s shoulders. “Yes, and we’re only wasting it now. Come on, we’ve all been waiting long enough.”

* * *

When Stiles gets married, it’s after his family’s exile so the dowry poses some difficulty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last couple months have been pretty hard on the writing, since when I wasn't traveling, I was sick from whatever I caught due to being stuck in metal tubes with lots of people and recycled air for long periods at the height of flu/cold season, so I'm throwing up some long-abandoned stuff. This one probably comes off as Game of Thrones-inspirted, but I've never read the books or seen more than the odd meme of the show. I have, however, read Maurice Druon's [The Accursed Kings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Accursed_Kings) series, which was one of Martin's inspirations. I suspect it differs in that the author's explicitly favorite character is a scheming ultra-male villain, and its English translation comes across as distinctly campy in emotional pitch. 
> 
> Anyway, this one never worked out because I couldn't really get into it enough to invent a whole world's worth of houses and family genealogies and all that. Not sure why, obviously I love worldbuilding, but I guess it just didn't work out. Some of the planned Peter/Derek did make it (in _much_ lighter form) into [The Sheep Chronicles.](https://archiveofourown.org/series/684416)


End file.
